"Well, you see there are materials—there's something to yield at both sides," said the attorney, very slowly, in a diplomatic reverie.
"But why should you think of a compromise?—the worst thing I fancy could happen to you."
There was a general truth in this. It is not the ferryman's interest to build a bridge, nor was it Mr. Rumsey's that his client should walk high and dry over those troubled waters through which it was his privilege and profit to pilot him. But he had not quite so much faith in this case as Monsieur Varbarriere had, and he knew that his wealthy and resolute client could grow savage enough in defeat, and had once or twice had stormy interviews with him after failures.
"If the young gentleman and young lady liked one another, for instance, the conflicting claims might be reconciled, and a marriage would in that case arrange the difference."
"There's nothing very deep in that," snarled Varbarriere, "but there is everything impracticable. Do you think Guy Deverell, whose father that lache murdered before my eyes, could ever endure to call him father? Bah! If I thought so I would drive him from my presence and never behold him more. No, no, no! There is more than an estate in all this—there is justice, there is punishment."
Monsieur Varbarriere, with his hands in his pockets, took a turn up and down the room, and his solemn steps shook the floor, and his countenance was agitated by violence and hatred.
The pale, thin attorney eyed him with a gentle and careworn observation. His respected client was heaving with a great toppling swagger as he to-ed and fro-ed in his thunderstorm, looking as black as the Spirit of Evil.
This old-maidish attorney was meek and wise, but by no means timid. He was accustomed to hear strong language, and sometimes even oaths, without any strange emotion. He looked on this sort of volcanic demonstration scientifically, as a policeman does on drunkenness—knew its stages, and when it was best left to itself.
Mr. Rumsey, therefore, poked the fire a little, and then looked out of the window.
"You don't go to town to-night?"