"I do not forget; but the days of Queen Victoria are not those of Elizabeth," was the reply. Mr. Swanland, in his hours of elegant leisure, had occasionally met literary people, and though he distrusted them, stored away their utterances and quotations.
"Can't you talk English," asked Mr. Forde in reply.
"Certainly, though I should not care to talk it quite so plainly as did her Majesty. She said, 'I made you, proud prelate, and by —— I will unmake you!' I say, 'You brought this estate to me, and I intend to wind it up honestly without fear or favour.'"
"Damn you!" said Mr. Forde with a sincerity and vigour the Virgin Queen herself might have envied.
Like Mortomley, whom he had netted, he found himself utterly taken in.
"Would to God!" he remarked, with that reference to a supreme power people are apt to make when they have exhausted the resources of all their own idols and found them really of very little avail, "Would to God! I had left the management of Mortomley's Estate to that fool Mortomley himself and his solicitor. They would have considered ME, and this selfish brute will not."
Which was indeed quite true. A man had always better by far place himself in the hands of a man who is a gentleman, even if he be a fool, than of a man who is a cad, even though he be wise.
Save through misadventure, the gentleman will not throw over even a cad; but the cad waits his opportunity and throws over friend and foe, gentle and simple, with equal impartiality.
Mr. Swanland did at all events, and therein, situated as he chanced to be, he was wise.
For with the best intentions in the world, Mr. Forde had hitherto always managed to bring those trustees who were simple enough or dishonest enough to do his bidding to ultimate grief.