‘I’ve done that, thanks to you, Swinford; and I thought her stunning—that’s the truth. But you see there’s money in it, and we’re not to call rich at Pakenham. It would be a deal pleasanter for my father to keep all Uncle John’s money than to divide with a lady who perhaps has no real right. Don’t jump up in that way—I think her stunning. But still you know that’s a very queer story of Mrs. Swinford’s. Uncle Will was no end of a bad old man, I’ve always heard. Why mightn’t he do that as well as the rest?’
‘I do not know,’ said Leo, who had grown pale, ‘what your respected uncle is supposed to have done. He may have been the greatest reprobate that ever lived; but I do not see how that furthers your case. I presume there must have been two of them before it would do you any good; and the man who will endeavour to cast a blemish upon that lady—well, I may say he will have to do with me first.’
‘Swinford! for goodness’ sake don’t take up that tone. Why, what have you to do with it? Do you mean to challenge me? These are your French ways—you know as well as I do they’re no go here.’
‘The more’s the pity, when it is a question of injuring a woman!’ said Leo, whose moustache had taken a warlike twist, and every nerve in his person seemed strung.
‘I don’t want to injure her; but if you think fifty thousand pounds or so—that’s a nice bit of money to hand over for no motive but sheer love of justice—if it should turn out perhaps—’
‘If what should turn out?’
‘Well—that perhaps they had no real right. I don’t mean that it would be their fault. She might have been taken in, and never known. I’ve always heard he was a horrible old scamp, up to everything—and would have cheated you as soon as look at you. It would be nothing wonderful if he had cheated a girl who, I suppose, was fond of him. A woman will be fond of anything that notices her, I believe. And fifty thousand pounds is a big bit of money to throw away.’
‘Well, my friend,’ said Leo, ‘I am quite well aware that fighting is, as you say in England, no go; but I am bound also to allow that it is a farce in France, and that if it were ever so serious and real it is not a way to decide a question like this. However, let us try, if not to decide it at least to throw some light upon it.’
‘Oh, that’s easy enough done, old man,’ said Lord Will. ‘You needn’t trouble yourself. She has a solicitor, I suppose, and he will have to send in all the papers to our man, and they’ll manage it between them. Of course, if our fellow has a hint that there is anything irregular he will be more particular. That’s more or less what I came for, don’t you know: to see what she had heard about old John, and so forth, and what she expected and——’
‘What you say,’ said Leo, ‘sounds as if you meant—that you were to try whether she could be made to be content with less than her rights—with anything that it was thought well to give. I don’t suppose that is what you mean.’