“In your power? I? In yours? You are mad.”
“Oh, no; I am entirely sane. Saner than you, madame; for you do not seem to understand that you have done a very ugly thing, a vulgar thing even; what is called in English, I believe, a first-class misdemeanor, for you obtained a very large sum by false representation.”
She changed color; she was intelligent and she did see her conduct in the light in which twelve London jurymen would be likely to see it, and also in the shape in which the Radical press would be certain to present it to their public.
Beaumont relented a little. A man may be too old to fully appreciate beauty, but he is always kinder to a pretty woman than to a plain one. Moreover he had no real inclination to figure in the law courts himself, though to punish her he was prepared to take her into them.
“Is it possible, madame,” he said with hesitation, “that all the great people you belong to cannot arrange this small matter for you without forcing me to go to extremes? The magnificent English aristocracy.”
“The magnificent English aristocracy,” she repeated with unspeakable scorn, “who are coal-owners, corn-factors, horse-dealers, game-vendors, shop-owners, tradesmen, every man-jack of them, are most of them bankrupt tradesmen, my good Beaumont! They are obliged to ally themselves with tradesmen who aren’t bankrupt—like you—to keep their heads above water. The great families with whom I am allied, as you expressed it, couldn’t, I believe, amongst them all raise a thousand guineas in solid coin.”
“But you came to me for twelve thousand,” thought Beaumont; aloud he merely said, “But monsieur your brother? Surely he——”
A shiver ran over her from head to foot. She would rather, she thought, face the Middlesex jury than tell this tale to Ronald.
“My brother has all the copy-book virtues,” she answered sharply. “He would sell his shirt to pay you if you told him this story, but if he hasn’t got a shirt?”
“You speak figuratively, I presume?”