‘Go away!’ she cried, ‘go away, go away! What I am saying is not for you. Go away, Leo Swinford, or you may hear something you will like still less—go away, go away!’
‘Swinford,’ said Lord Will, standing up, ‘this you see is too serious to be suppressed. Whether it’s fact or not, don’t you see I must hear out what your mother has got to say?’
Leo did not make any reply. He retired again to the darker part of the room, but instead of lounging about drew forward a chair almost ostentatiously, and placed himself therein.
‘I see,’ said Mrs. Swinford, with a laugh, ‘the Devil’s Advocate—on the part of his client. That will not make any difference. Would you like me to tell you how these two came together? I can do so in every detail.’
‘The question for me is,’ said Lord Will, after a pause: for to tell the truth, being a young man with a clear view of his own interests, but no wickedness in him, nor desire to harm his neighbours—at least no more than was essential to benefit himself—he was a little frightened by the gleam of devilry in Mrs. Swinford’s eyes; and he was well enough aware—as people in society are aware of everything of the kind—that there was something about Mrs. Swinford herself which had kept her out of England for so long. ‘The question for me is simply about the marriage. If there is scandal there is no use in raking up old scandals; besides, whatever happened before, if she is his wife and the girl his child, nothing else matters to us. I am sure it would be all very interesting—but you see——’
‘I am not going to rake up old scandals,’ Mrs. Swinford said, ‘but as it all happened within my knowledge—— She was here—a pretty little country girl, nothing more. She has immensely improved—quite, quite a different creature. A girl I had taken a fancy to. I am not sure that she did not teach Leo a little. That was her standing, the daughter of the parish clergyman.’
‘That I am sure she did not,’ said Leo from behind; ‘you forget that I had a governess, mother.’
‘Oh, you are there still, old Truepenny! You seem practising for the ghost in Hamlet, Leo. No, decidedly I cannot go on while he is there. It shall be for another time. To-morrow you will come to me in my boudoir before you go away.’
Lord Will looked round to his friend with an appealing air. Then going up to him, ‘Swinford,’ he said, ‘like a good fellow, let me hear it all now. I must know it.’
‘In order, if you can, to keep what is theirs from two helpless women?’