“Too high to put your foot in the mud—too high to put your foot on the pavement,” said Harry, mischievously, with his eyes on this impulsive lady, and hitching his chair off a little to secure a fair start. “You’ll be too high, I’m thinkin’, to get your foot to ground at all, one o’ these days, if you don’t look sharp. It’s too high a flight, I’m told, to touch terra firma wi’ the top o’ your toe—the gallows, I mean—and that’s what you’re coming to quick, I’m afeard.”
As Harry concluded, he stood up, intending to get out, if possible, without the indignity of coming to hand-grips with a woman.
The Herculean lady, in sky-blue satin and Roman pearls, leaned forward with sharpened features, but neither extended her arm nor attempted to rise. Then she sighed deeply, and leaned with her shoulders to the wall.
“Off in a coach for this bout,” thought Harry.
“Thank you, kind lad, always the same,” she sneered, quietly. “You wish it, no doubt, but, no, you don’t think it. I know better.”
“Why the devil should I wish you hanged, Bertha? Don’t be a fool; you’re not in my way, and never can be. There’s that boy, and, for reasons of my own, I’m glad he is—I’m glad he’s where he is—and Wyvern will be for him and not for me—never!”
“Harry, dear, you know quite well,” she drawled, softly, with a titter, “you’ll poison that boy if you can.”
“You lie!” said Harry, turning scarlet, and then as suddenly pale. “You lie!—and so that’s answered.”
Here followed a silence. The woman was not angry, but she tittered again and nodded her head.
“Wyvern’s out o’ my head. I never cared about it. I had my own reasons. I never did,” he swore, furiously, striking his hand on the table. “And I won’t see that boy ruined—my flesh and blood—my own nephew. No, no, Bertha, that would never do; the boy must have his own. I’ll see you made comfortable, but that lay won’t do—you’ll find it won’t pay nohow.”