"Oh! Mrs. Mortomley would not then allow her child to kiss you?" commented Mr. Asherill.
"Mein Gott, no!" exclaimed the German, warming with his subject; "ten million pardons, Asherill. Mein Gott in my affluent language means not the same, by hundreds of degrees, as the same phrase rendered into English. The small miss is a company child, wearing her hair soh;"—and Mr. Kleinwort made a feint of arranging a Gainsborough fringe over his ample forehead,—"who is neither shy nor forward, but has a knowledge of les convenances customary with young ladies and gentlemen even of the smallest age, who have mixed in society since able to walk alone, and she, in answer to my petition, would have come to me. All who know Kleinwort know his weakness for children,—lovely innocents,—everything we men are not. But madam said, 'Lenore, I want you;' and, taking the tiny creature's hand, looked at me as a tigress with a cub might have regarded a hunter with a cocked gun. And Gott in Himmel knows," finished Mr. Kleinwort plaintively—, "I wanted to do no harm to child, mother, or father; only, as bad fortune would have it, poor dear Forde was rough. Like all timid, nervous people he always is rough with tender women and weak men, and so caused that mistaken little Mrs. Mortomley to put up her mane."
"What sort of person is this Mrs. Mortomley, who seems to have disturbed your friend's equanimity?" inquired Mr. Asherill, turning to Mr. Werner.
"Much like other women; there is not a great deal of difference among them," was the reply.
"Ah! is not that Werner?" remarked Mr. Kleinwort; but Mr. Asherill silenced him with an impatient movement.
"Gentlemen," he said in his best manner, "I am sorry to seem ungrateful for your kindness, but I may tell you, in a word, this is a business which will not suit me. It had better, far better, be arranged privately. Your safest policy would be to find amongst yourselves money to carry on the business. It and Mortomley must be right enough."
"The man is ill and has no stuff left in him," exclaimed Mr. Werner energetically and colloquially, forgetting in his haste what he had said previously concerning wives and doctors. Mr. Asherill, however, quietly marked a point, while he observed, "Yes."
"And there is no one left—no, not one," added Mr. Kleinwort eagerly, "but a nephew in a velvet suit, who paints poor pictures and swaggers, and in effect, if not in deed, snaps his fingers at us all; and his sister, who is going to marry a rich man, and wants to be rid of the connection, and little madam with the big temper, who thinks to fight the world single-handed, but who does not know, oh! she knows not all that means."
"And Mortomley?" suggested Mr. Asherill.
"For him we will just now, if you please, carry what you call nought," answered Mr. Kleinwort quickly.