Mr. Grant did not at once reply; but after awhile he said in a measured tone, his eyes turned toward the ground, “With due allowance for accidents and circumstances, I do not think my estimate of Perdita was a mistaken one.”
“Accept my congratulations then!” rejoined the baronet, with a short and heavy laugh. “I am to take it, then, that, in order to win the sympathy of this passionate and generous heart, you have not spared the reputation of the lady’s foster-father?”
Grant looked up quickly and keenly. “I made no such insinuation!” said he.
“But you can’t deny the fact?”
“I’m not concerned either to deny or to admit it.”
“Well, well—you’re quite right: no use disputing about that. And Fillmore—another sympathetic confidant, I presume?”
“As a man of affairs, I found Mr. Fillmore all I could wish.”
“Exactly! and who is to be next? I’m interested to know the persons who are henceforth to behold me in my true colors! Or perhaps you intend to be impartial in your favors, and publish the matter broadcast?” All this was said with a kind of ghastly jocularity. “Let me hear just what I’m to expect. That’s only fair—eh?”
“Doesn’t it occur to you, Frank,” said the other, looking fully at him, while the color reddened in his face, “that what you are saying is offensive? Has my past conduct given you grounds to adopt this tone toward me? You try my temper, sir! and I ... I shall not, however, allow myself to be angry.” By a manifest effort he, in fact, controlled his rising heat, and constrained himself to an austere coldness.
The baronet seemed not to wish to provoke his guest any further. Either he was afraid of him—and there was a stern fire at the heart of the uniformly serene old gentleman which did not encourage wanton experiment—or else there were reasons why he desired rather to conciliate than to irritate him. “I expressed myself clumsily, Charles,” he said. “ ’Pon my honor I meant no insult. But a man wants to know how he stands—where he’s to look for enemies and where for friends. Now you and I are not going to rake up old matters—eh? For good or bad, the past is done with. The wrong can’t be righted now; you can’t right it, nor can I; if I could, I would in a moment. But time has arranged things after its own fashion. I did what I could for the wife and child, didn’t I? I stuck to Perdita till she got a good husband, and then ’twas she left me, not I her. You ... well—you made your way in the world, and if all were known, perhaps you’re in a better position to-day than if all this had never happened. But your turning up again has put a new face on the affair—eh?”