"Of dealing with me, Mr. Byfield, sir?" Daniel Meggison put his head on one side, with a faint show of indignation.
"Frankly, Mr. Meggison, I do not know quite what you would do with any substantial sum of money that might be placed in your hands. I do not trust your discretion. I want to speak quite plainly."
"Don't spare my feelings," said Meggison, leaning against the door, and folding his arms in turn. "I have been battered by the world; I can put up with anything."
"You clear the ground beautifully," said Gilbert, smiling grimly. "Frankly then, I don't care a rush about you or your son, or any of you—with the sole exception of Bessie. I want to help her—and I only use you because there's no one else that stands in such near relation to her as you do. She wouldn't take money from me—but you will; and so we've got to start some little fiction about the matter, as I suggested. This very night, Mr. Meggison, you must come into your property; but I shall have to be a sort of trustee, the better to keep a tight hand upon what you do."
"You mentioned a sum of fifty pounds," said Meggison, after an uncomfortable pause. "Fifty pounds is not much, when it comes to a holiday; as fortunes are counted, it's nothing to speak of."
"I've altered my mind about that," said Gilbert. "Instead of providing the money, I think I'll provide the place for a holiday, and see that you have sufficient money to keep it going. I've a cottage in Sussex—at a place they call Fiddler's Green; I've used it for fishing and so forth; it's rather pretty, and it wouldn't be half a bad notion to whisk this girl of yours away down there, and give her a holiday."
Daniel Meggison looked dubious. "It occurs to me, on the other hand, Mr. Byfield, sir," he said, with a shake of the head, "that she might find it dull. No society—no familiar figures such as she meets every day; no intercourse with boon companions——"
"Perhaps you're thinking a little of yourself," said Gilbert, with a smile. "I imagine we can trust your daughter to like the place to which I'm thinking of sending her. We'll call it settled. Now for the method."
"Which I suppose is where I come in," retorted the other, a little sourly.
"Exactly. We want a fine stretch of your imagination; we want you to invent that mysterious relative, or that extraordinary speculation—either of which shall in a moment provide you with a substantial sum of money. What more natural, therefore, than that you—devoted father—should immediately turn to your daughter with the earnest desire that she should be the first to benefit by your good fortune. The cottage at Fiddler's Green you rent, as a surprise to her; you give her the rest she so sorely needs; you bring her back to London in due course, with renewed strength to take up the battle of life."