This calm and deliberate denial disconcerted Mrs. Ferrier. She had not expected him to confess fully to such a charge; neither, much as she distrusted him, had she thought him capable of a deliberate lie if the charge were true—some sense of his better qualities had penetrated her thus far—but she had looked for shuffling and evasion.
He was not slow to see that the battle was at an end, and in the same moment his perfect self-restraint vanished. “May I ask where you heard this interesting story?” he demanded, drawing himself up.
Her confusion increased. The truth was that she had heard it from her son; but Louis had begged her not to betray him as the informant, and his story had been founded on hints merely. “It’s no use telling where I heard it,” she said. “I’ll take your word. But since you’ve given that, of course you won’t have any objection to giving your oath. If you will swear that you don’t owe any gambling debts, I’ll say no more, unless I hear more.”
He reddened violently. “I will not do it!” he exclaimed. “If my word is not good, my oath would not be. You ought to be satisfied. And if you will allow me, I will go to Annette now, unless you have some other subject to propose.”
He had risen, his manner full of haughtiness, when she stopped him: “I haven’t quite got through yet. Don’t be in such a hurry.”
He did not seat himself again, but, leaning on the back of a chair, looked at her fully.
“I wish you would sit down,” she said. “It isn’t pleasant to have you standing up when I want to talk to you.”
He smiled, not very pleasantly, and seated himself, looking at her with a steady gaze that was inexpressibly bitter and secretive. She returned it with a more piercing regard than one would have thought those insignificant eyes capable of. She had not been able to understand his proud scruple, and her suspicions were alive again.
“If all goes right,” she began, watching him closely, “I’m willing that you and Annette should be married the first of September. I’ve made up my mind what I will do for you. You shall have five hundred dollars to go on a journey with, and then you will come back and live with me here two years. I’ll give you your board, and make Annette an allowance of five hundred a year, and see about some business for you. But I won’t pay any debts; and, if any such debts come up as we have been talking about, off you will go. If this story I’ve heard turns out to be true, not one dollar more of mine do you ever get, no matter when I find it out.”