Mr. Lot’s red face grew a shade redder.
“The devil you are?” he answered.
“It is very evident, sir, that a man of low character like myself, is—on your father’s showing—utterly unworthy of approaching Miss Hardacre with a view to matrimony.”
“Then, sir, you admit the truth of the charges made in my father’s letter?”
Jeffray kept his eyes fixed on his cousin’s red and lowering face.
“I recognize none of these charges,” he retorted, calmly, “for the simple reason that I feel myself justified by my own conscience. I do not love your sister, sir, I have no intention of doing her the great wrong of perjuring myself by promising to marry her.”
Mr. Lot took three strides to the left and three strides back again, as though setting to a partner in a dance. He turned and faced Jeffray again, his eyes glinting with anger, his clinched fists quivering with the inclination to dash itself in his kinsman’s face.
“This is your answer, sir?” he said.
“My answer, Lot.”
“Then, sir, I call you just what you are, a most infernal scoundrel.”