'Really, Alec,' he said, 'you deserve all the luck you get. Nobody can possibly grudge it to you. This picture is charming. I don't know when I have seen a sweeter thing. You have the finest feeling for rock and sea-shore and water. Well, my dear boy, I am very sorry that you haven't as fine a feeling for Armorel Rosevean—the sweetest girl and the best, I believe, in the world. Good-bye!—good-bye! till the day after to-morrow—the day after to-morrow! It will certainly reach to a thousand—or very near. Ho! ho! Lucky dog!'
Mr. Jagenal went away nodding and smiling. There are moments when it is very good to be a solicitor: they are moments rich in blessing: they compensate, in some measure, for those other moments when the guilty are brought to bay and the thriftless are made to tremble: they are the moments when the solicitor announces a windfall—the return of the long-lost Nabob—the discovery of a will—the favourable decision of the Court.
Alec sat down and seized a pen. He wrote hurriedly to his printers: 'Let the present arrangements,' he said, continue unchanged. I shall be in a position in two or three days to make a very considerable payment, and, after that, we will start on a more regular understanding.'
Another knock, and again the discreet man-servant came in on tiptoe. 'Lady refused her card,' he whispered.
The lady was none other than Armorel herself—in morning dress, wearing a hat.
He bowed coldly. There was a light in her eyes, and a heightened colour on her cheek, which hardly looked like a friendly call. But that, of course, one could not expect.
'After our recent interview,' he said, 'and after the very remarkable string of accusations which fell from your lips, I could hardly expect to see you in my studio, Miss Rosevean.'
'I came only to communicate a resolution arrived at by my friends Mr. Roland Lee and Miss Effie Wilmot.'
'From your friends Mr. Roland Lee and Miss Effie Wilmot? May I offer you a chair?'
'Thank you. No. My message is only to tell you this. They have resolved to let the past remain unknown.'