“But it was not produced! And in the absence of it, how could Philip Lancaster, any more than I, lay claim to the legacy? His belief goes for nothing; a man would believe anything for the sake of twenty thousand pounds. The will directs that he is to possess the legacy only in case that I reject it. It is only within these two days that I have known it was mine to reject. But I shall not reject it; I shall keep it:—do you mean to tell me that he has had the audacity to lay hands upon it?”
“I scarcely know even now whether you are in earnest,” said Fillmore, who was certainly perplexed. “There may have been technical delays in the way of his actually touching the money, but there can be no doubt that he has been regarded as the owner of it, and has acted accordingly. He has incurred expenses, in the furnishing of his house, and other matters, which he never could have afforded otherwise. For you to insist upon your claim now, would inevitably be his ruin.”
“I have nothing to do with that,” said the Marquise, smiling, “though I may be sorry that he has been so precipitate.”
“This can only be caprice in you,” said Fillmore, gravely. “The legacy is nothing to you. You have property to ten times that amount.”
“I must be allowed to understand my own requirements, sir.”
“You must have other reasons than those you state. It is not to benefit yourself but to injure him that you do this.”
The Marquise shrugged her shoulders. “Say, if you like, that to injure him benefits me.”
“How should it benefit you?”
“How should it not? Does it not benefit me to injure my enemy?—the man I hate! Has he not injured me? Is it no injury to have such things said of me as you repeated a while ago? Could they have been said if he had not authorized them? Do you pretend you love me, and do you let me be insulted by a man who gives it to be believed that I agreed to elope with him? Oh, if I were a man ... no! A woman is better!—except when she is fool enough to love!”
Fillmore stood up, his face reddening. “No man shall insult you without giving an account to me,” he said, speaking with a certain stiffness of utterance. “My love for you gives me that right, whether you admit it or not. I should be slow to believe that Mr. Lancaster can be capable of doing what you suspect; but if he did, he shall answer for it.”