Old Anthony lifted his head sharply, not speaking. The master continued:
"He said yesterday that he was acting by your advice. He repeated to-day, that you and Mrs. Dare had led him to look to Mary."
"Well?" returned Mr. Dare. "But I did not know he had spoken."
"How could you—excuse me, I again say, if I am to speak plainly—how could you ever have entertained so wild an idea?"
"Perhaps you would like to call it a presumptuous one?" chafed Mr. Dare.
"I do call it so," returned Mr. Ashley. "It can be regarded as nothing less; any impartial person would tell you so. I put out of the discussion altogether the want of means on the part of Cyril; I speak of its suitability. That Cyril should have aspired to an alliance with Mary Ashley was presumption in the highest degree. It has displeased me very much, and Henry looks upon it in the light of an insult."
"Who's Henry?" scornfully returned Mr. Dare. "A dreamy hypochondriac! Pray is Cyril not as well born as Mary Ashley?"
"Has he been as well reared? Is he proving that he has been? A man's conduct is of far more importance than his birth."
"It would seem that you care little about birth, or rearing either, or you would not exalt Halliburton to a level with yourself."
The master fixed his expressive eyes on Anthony Dare. "Halliburton's birth is, at any rate, as good as your family's and mine. His father's mother and your wife's father were brother and sister."