'I thought she would never look with favour on you—but treat you as Maude did,' said Mrs. Lindsay, slowly fanning herself with a large black lace fan.
Hawkey laughed maliciously; then he suddenly set his teeth together and exclaimed:
'Maude! I'll pay her out yet—she and I have not squared our accounts—I shall be even with her before long. As for little Annot not looking at me—by Jove, she has looked and said all I could have wished. She is not so "stand-off" and unapproachable as you may think all her set to be, when a fellow knows the way to go about it—as I rather flatter myself I do,' he added, caressing his straw-coloured and tenderly-fostered moustache, and pulling up his shirt-collar.
'But where have you and she met, since you ceased to occupy your rooms here?'
'Oh—with the hounds—in the park—wherever I wished, in fact. You and she, Deb, will get on excellently together, if we all play our cards well now—I marry one of the family, don't you see? Then, I haven't a doubt that Annot has money.'
'Did she give you reason to suppose she has?'
'N—no—not exactly—well?'
'She will succeed to whatever her mother may have—little, probably.'
'Will have, or may have—shady that! Well, unlike most heiresses, she's a deuced pretty little girl, Deb, and suits my book exactly. So, with your assistance, we shall be all right.'
'My assistance?'