“Don’t be a fool, Bendibow,” interrupted the other coldly. “You have come here to ask my advice, and perhaps my assistance. You can have both, within certain limits; but on condition that you don’t require me to shut my eyes to your character. Technically speaking, I have insulted you; and you may resent it if you like. But as a man of the world, you may remember that I have not spoken in the presence of witnesses; and that if you were blameless, the insult would recoil on myself. Take time to think it over, and then do as best pleases you.”
Sir Francis, however, whatever may have been his other failings, was not slow-witted; and he had already taken his attitude. “You have a damned disagreeable way of putting things, Fillmore,” he said; “you ought to know that something more than logic is necessary to make social intercourse agreeable. It is not so much what you say, as your manner of saying it, that got the better of my temper for a moment. I’m not going to quarrel with you for not believing me to be a saint; you may distrust my financial discretion if you like; but you can’t expect me to be interested in hearing your reasons. Let me try the other claret. I have made my mistakes, and I’ve repented of them, I hope. No man, unless he’s a fool, gossips about his mistakes—why should he? Do you mean to say that I can’t consult you on a matter that annoys me, without your raking up all my follies of the last five and twenty years?”
“My intention was not to alter our relations, but to define them,” Fillmore replied. “As we stand now, we are not likely to misconceive each other. What is this annoyance?”
“It comes from one of my follies that you’ve not been at the pains to remember. But I suppose you know that when Grantley absconded, he left a daughter behind him, whom I adopted; and that ten years ago she married and left England.”
Fillmore nodded.
“She came back a week or two ago,” continued the baronet: “and she acted a little scene at my expense in my office. It was at my expense in more ways than one. She is a devilish clever woman. She had a grudge against me for not having given her the dowry she wanted at the time of her marriage; and ... well, the upshot of it was that I compounded with her for ten thousand pounds. It was confoundedly inconvenient at the time, too; and after all, instead of banking with us, as she had given us to understand she would, the little rascal has gone to Childs’. Her husband left her a very pretty fortune. There’s not a widow in London better off or better looking than she is.”
“She means to settle here?”
“She does. And I would give a good deal if she had settled in New Zealand instead!”
“From what you have said,” observed Fillmore, after a pause, “I infer that the lady knows something to your discredit.”
“Thank you! It’s not what she knows, but what she may come to know—at least, something might happen which might be very annoying. Hang it, Fillmore, can’t you keep your inferences to yourself? I’m not in the dock—I’m at your table!”