“Really, Stephen Ray,” he remarked, glancing around him at the well-filled bookcases, the handsome pictures, and the luxurious furniture, “you are very nicely fixed here.”
“I suppose you didn’t come to tell me that,” responded Stephen Ray with a sneer.
“Well, not altogether, but it is as well to refer to it. I have known you a good many years. I remember when you first came here to visit your uncle in the character of a poor relation. I don’t believe you had a hundred dollars to your name.”
Such references grated upon the purse-proud aristocrat, who tried to persuade himself that he had always been as prosperous as at present.
“There is no occasion for your reminiscences,” he said stiffly.
“No, I suppose you don’t care to think of those days now. Your cousin, Dudley, a fine young man, was a year or two older. Who would have thought that the time would come when you—the poor cousin—would be reigning in his place?”
“If that is all you have to say, our interview may as well close.”
“It isn’t all I have to say. I must indulge in a few more reminiscences, though you dislike them. A few years passed. Dudley married against his father’s wishes; that is, his father did not approve of his selection, and he fell out of favor. As he lost favor you gained it.”
“That is true enough, but it is an old story.”
“Does it seem just that an own son should be disinherited and a stranger——”