He regarded her with some bewilderment, as well he might, and said,
'My dear Miss Raymond, what am I to understand by this paradox?'
'Understand that I must marry my cousin Allan, or forfeit papa's fortune—it goes to him if I refuse, or to charities.'
Her distinctness and vehemence carried conviction with her words. Holcroft was confounded; but, being a practised dissembler, he only smiled, and said,
'A most remarkable arrangement, and a tyrannical one for you. But suppose the Master had died in his boyhood—or were to die now?'
'The will would be worthless in effect, of course, I suppose,' replied Olive, whose cheeks now burned scarlet, for—always a creature of hot impulse—she now thought, 'why should I have permitted my self to speak to him, one, almost a stranger, or to any man, of papa's will? What must he think of me! Oh, what will Aunt Aberfeldie say?'
For half a minute Holcroft was silent. He was thinking, 'this must be all bosh!—a cock and a bull, or a madman's will; she doesn't know what she is talking about—no woman or girl ever knows business. Well—I've a pull on her anyway; a viscount's niece isn't in a fellow's power every day, as she will find herself in mine.'
What he referred to we shall show ere long.
While Olive was still crimson with reflections on her own imprudence, Holcroft took possession of her passive hands, and said, in a partly assumed voice of agitation,
'You told me, Miss Raymond—let me say Olive—a minute or two ago that you did not care for me. I shall not take that as your final answer; and ere I leave Dundargue, when I again venture to speak to you on the subject nearest my heart, your reply——'