Again the counsellor disliked the expression; though Mary Monson looked unusually pretty at that particular moment.[moment.] He did not pause to analyze his feelings, notwithstanding, but rather sought to relieve his own curiosity, which had been a good deal aroused by the information just received.
“As you have not hesitated to tell me of what you call your ‘excursions,’ Miss Monson,” he continued, “perhaps you will so far extend your confidence as to let me know where you go?”
“I can have no objection to that. Mr. Timms tells me the law cannot compel a counsel to betray his client’s secrets; and of course I am safe with you. Stop—I have a duty to perform that has been too long delayed. Gentlemen of your profession are entitled to their fees; and, as yet, I have been very remiss in this respect. Will you do me the favour, Mr. Dunscomb, to accept that, which you will see has been some time in readiness to be offered.”
Dunscomb was too much of a professional man to feel any embarrassment at this act of justice; but he took the letter, broke the seal, even before his client’s eyes, and held up for examination a note for a thousand dollars. Prepared as he was by Timms’s account for a liberal reward, this large sum took him a good deal by surprise.
“This is an unusual fee, Miss Monson!” he exclaimed; “one much more considerable than I should expect from you, were I working for remuneration, as in your case I certainly am not.”
“Gentlemen of the law look for their reward, I believe, as much as others. We do not live in the times of chivalry, when gallant men assisted distressed damsels as a matter of honour; but in what has well been termed a ‘bank-note world.’”
“I have no wish to set myself up above the fair practices of my profession, and am as ready to accept a fee as any man in Nassau-Street. Nevertheless, I took your case in hand with a very different motive. It would pain me to be obliged to work for a fee, on the present unhappy occasion.[occasion.]”
Mary Monson looked grateful, and for a minute she seemed to be reflecting on some scheme by which she could devise a substitute for the old-fashioned mode of proceeding in a case of this sort.
“You have a niece, Mr. Dunscomb,” she at length exclaimed—“as Marie Moulin informs me? A charming girl, and who is about to be married?”
The lawyer assented by an inclination of the head, fastening his penetrating black eyes on the full, expressive, greyish-blue ones of his companion.