Sir Guy rose to his full lean height. The two men faced one another. “Mr. Maturin,” the old gentleman said, “you have corrupted my grandson. You have plundered the best years of his life. Have you anything to say?”
Mr. Maturin said: “If you don’t mind, sir, I will reserve my defence. Isn’t there still worse to come?”
Sir Guy stared, as though he was seeing him for the first time, at the elegant figure who stood with his back to the fire, warming his hands. The savage old man was, so far as it was possible for him to be, nonplussed. Always a great reader of those memoirs and belles-lettres that tell intimately of the lives of gentlemen of more careless and debonair times, the anatomy of galanterie, scoundrelism and coxcombry, as exemplified in the Restoration gallants and the eighteenth-century fops, had interested old Sir Guy’s leisure; but never had he thought he would be faced by one so completely unashamed, so bad, by one who could wear the evil dandysme of his soul as nonchalantly as a monocle. Sir Guy again sat himself at his long, burdened writing-table and played thoughtfully with a paper-knife. For the first time in his life he was faced with the humiliation of not knowing what to do: for here before him was a man, an incredible man, to whom such ancient words as honour, loyalty, betrayal, were without meaning. Beau Maturin would take such words, distort them with a slanting smile, put false feet to them, and send them tripping away on the wings of a merry laugh. Merry, for what could shame such a man from his gaiety? And Sir Guy realised now that he had made a mistake in sending Capel Maturin the bank-note. He had sent it to arouse the man’s curiosity, thus to ensure his presence at this interview, from which the old gentleman still, though grimly, expected the best issue; but, more particularly, he had sent that bank-note as an earnest of what he might be prepared to do for Mr. Maturin if he would help the de Gramercys to bring about that blessed issue. But now Sir Guy realised his false step. A thousand pounds more or less did not matter very much to him; but did they matter so very much, he could now reflect, to that pretty, penniless gentleman? Money, to be sure, could not be of the first importance to so complete a cad as Capel Maturin: he had spent his own considerable fortune quickly enough, and, they said, generously enough: it must, thought Sir Guy, be the little cads to whom money really appealed.
The old gentleman’s voice, when he continued, was more subdued, less proud. And has it not been already remarked that Mr. Maturin did not like to see the descent from pride to humility? which, had he had any part of virtue, he should have taken for a sign of grace, even as it is written in the Scriptures. But maybe he did not notice the slight tremor that played in that proud old voice before it could be subdued, for at the moment he was intent on examining his patent-leather shoes, which were exquisite examples of Lobb’s later manner.
Sir Guy was saying: “My grandson, you corrupted. My granddaughter, you have sed——”
“Dear!” cried Mrs. de Gramercy.
Mr. Maturin was quite silent, examining his shoes.
“Perhaps that was too harsh a word,” the old gentleman conceded—he conceded!
“It was,” said Beau Maturin softly. “Much.”
Now Sir Guy’s voice was so low as to be barely audible, while his eyes were as though enchanted by the monogram on his paper-knife.