His companion raised himself in his chair; and there was surprise on his face.
"How can you help them so well as with your money?" he cried. "Why, it is the very thing they want most."
"Oh, indeed!" said Brand, coldly. "You see, Evelyn, my father was a business man; and I may have inherited a commercial way of looking at things. If I were to give away a lot of money to unknown people, for unknown purposes,
I should say that I was being duped, and that they were putting the money in their own pocket."
"My dear fellow!" Lord Evelyn protested; "the need of money is most urgent. There are printing-presses to be kept going; agents to be paid; police-spies to be bribed—there is an enormous work to be done, and money must be spent."
"All the same," said Brand, who was invariably most resolved when he was most quiet in his manner, "I shall prefer not running the chance of being duped in that direction. Besides, I am bound in honor not to do anything of the kind. I can fling myself away—this is my own lookout; and my life, or the way I spend it, is not of great consequence to me. But my father's property, if anything happens to me, ought to go intact to my sister's boys, to whom, indeed, I have left it by will. I will say to Lind, 'Is it myself or my money that is wanted: you must choose.'"
"The question would be an insult."
"Oh, do you think so? Very well; I will not ask it. But that is the understanding." Then he added, more lightly, "Why, would you have the Pilgrim start with his pocket full of sovereigns? His staff and his wallet are all he is entitled to. And when one is going to make a big plunge, shouldn't one strip?"
There was no answer; for Lord Evelyn's quick ear had caught the sound of wheels in the adjacent street.
"There is my trap," he said, looking at his watch as he rose.