"Bab!" called out the lawyer.
Miss Fauntleroy came back. "Did you speak, pa?"
"Don't go strumming that in the next room. This gentleman has perhaps called to talk on matters of business."
She threw down the music with a laugh: gave another good-natured nod to Robert, and finally quitted the room.
"Mr. Fauntleroy, I have come—but I ought first to apologize for calling at this hour, but I am going off at once to London—I have come to ask if you will act for me as my legal adviser?"
Mr. Fauntleroy made a momentary pause. "Do you mean generally, or in any particular cause?"
"I mean in this, my cause. I require some solicitor to take it up at once, and serve a notice of ejectment on Squire Carr, from the possession of the property he has assumed. I suppose that would be the first legal step; but you will know what to do better than I. As the many years solicitor to my grandfather, I thought you might perhaps have no objection to become mine."
"I have no objection in the world," said Mr. Fauntleroy. "But, my good sir—and this, mind you, is disinterested advice—I would recommend you to pause before you enter on any such contest. There's not a shadow of chance that the property can be wrested from Squire Carr, so long as your father's marriage remains a doubt. It is his by law."
"I do not think there is a shadow of doubt that the proofs of the marriage will be found, and speedily. I go up to London to search. Meanwhile you will be so kind as act just as you would act were the proofs in your hand. I will not allow Squire Carr to retain, by ever so short a time, the property unmolested, or to fancy he retains it," continued the young man, in some emotion. "Every hour that he does so is a reflection on my mother's name."
"But—yes, that's all very well, very dutiful—but where's the use of entering on a contest certain to be lost?"