'Kind of woman?' cried Mr. Pomeroy furiously. 'I am this kind of man. Oh, d--n you! If you want plain speaking you shall have it! She has fifty thousand, and she is in my house; well, I am this kind of man! I'll not let that money go out of the house without having a fling at it! It is the devil's luck has sent her here, and it will be my folly will send her away--if she goes. Which she does not if I am the kind of man I think I am. So there for you! There's plain speaking.'
'You don't know her,' Mr. Thomasson answered doggedly. 'Mr. Dunborough is a gentleman of mettle, and he could not bend her.'
'She was not in his house!' the other retorted, with a grim laugh. Then, in a lower, if not more amicable tone, 'Look here, man,' he continued, 'd'ye mean to say that you had not something of this kind in your mind when you knocked at this door?'
'I!' Mr. Thomasson cried, virtuously indignant.
'Ay, you! Do you mean to say you did not see that here was a chance in a hundred? In a thousand? Ay, in a million? Fifty thousand pounds is not found in the road any day?'
Mr. Thomasson grinned in a sickly fashion. 'I know that,' he said.
'Well, what is your idea? What do you want?'
The tutor did not answer on the instant, but after stealing one or two furtive glances at Lord Almeric, looked down at the table, a nervous smile distorting his mouth. At length, 'I want--her,' he said; and passed his tongue furtively over his lips.
'The girl?'
'Yes.'