"And speaks like a lady."
"Yes, yes; she certainly does."
"Well, then"—John Haveril rose—"I believe I've said all I came to say."
"I'm glad of that. Perhaps you'd like to say it all over again. You have told me my character; you have assured me that I am not your son; you have offered me millions if I behave properly; and you have been so good as to praise my mother warmly."
"I've said, I think, all I came to say," he repeated, in his slow manner. "Don't tell your mother—when you know the truth—what I said, nor why I came here. Best for her to believe that you behave, as you are going to behave, out of your own good heart—you can pretend a bit, I suppose, without any thought of the dollars. And when you get those dollars, you can say to yourself, young man, that you wouldn't have had them if it hadn't been for your mother."
With these words John Haveril offered his hand. Humphrey looked straight through him, taking no notice of the proffered salute.
"I was once in the service of an English gentleman," he said—"in his garden. But for that I should believe that the English aristocracy was more unmannerly than any New Mexican cowboy. Sir, to use what I understand is your favourite expression where manners are concerned, you are yourself nothing better than a cad and an outsider. But do not tell your mother, when you know the truth, that I said so. Let it be a secret between ourselves that I have found you to be a cad—an unmannerly cad."
He then departed with dignity.
Humphrey looked after him with surprise rather than anger. To be called an outsider by a beast of a self-made Dives who had formerly been a gardener! It was astonishing; it was a new experience; it was ludicrous.