As he stood there he found it hard to realise that, in all likelihood, the old familiar door had closed behind him for the last time, and that the tie between himself and his uncle, which had been one of strong if undemonstrative affection, was severed for ever. And he owed it all to the woman he had just left! He ground his teeth together and went through a brief, but forcible form of commination, which it was, perhaps, just as well that Lady Clinton was not there to hear.
But he could not stand on the step all day. A passing hansom inspired him with a sudden resolution. He would go and see "old Garden," and give him an account of the interview between himself and her ladyship.
He was fortunate enough to find the lawyer at home.
The old man listened to him with kindly patience, and did not interrupt his recital by a word. When Burgo had finished, he said: "It would seem from what you tell me that you and her ladyship have not only begun by being at daggers-drawn, but are likely to remain so."
"Whose fault is that? Not mine assuredly. But how is it possible for me to regard her otherwise than as my enemy? Think how she must have worked upon my uncle's mind before she succeeded in obtaining his consent to an act of such gross injustice! Knowing the dear old boy as I do, it is inconceivable to me how he was ever persuaded to agree to such a thing. Putting aside his affection for me, I never knew a man with a stronger sense of justice; besides which, he had always a will of his own, and knew how to assert it."
The lawyer shook his head with a smile and a pursing out of his lips. "My experience has taught me that it is often the most unlikely men, to all seeming, who succumb the soonest and the most completely to feminine influence. It is your smooth, slippery, softly good-natured sort of men--men with no angles or corners to speak of--whom the ladies find it most difficult to grasp and hold. Now you Mr. Burgo (if you will allow me to say so), with all your fine assertiveness (which, mind you, I like to see in one of your years), and that dash of Hotspur in your composition, are just the kind of man whom a certain kind of woman could twist round her little finger with the utmost ease, and that without allowing you to suspect that you were anything but very much your own master."
Burgo laughed, as if to cover the dusky flush that mounted to his cheeks. Would it be anything but happiness, he asked himself, to be, as old Garden put it, twisted round the little finger of Clara Leslie, even although he should be fully cognisant of the mode in which he was being practised upon? But, for that matter, was Clara at all the kind of girl to try to twist any man round her finger? From what he had seen of her, he felt sure she was not.
Mr. Garden coughed, and put on his gravest professional air. "To return to the interview between Lady Clinton and yourself," he said. "This seems likely to prove a very awkward business for you."
"Awkward is not the word. It simply means ruination."
"And yet you refused the cheque for a thousand guineas!"