Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/192

184 given over strumming, so give over counting, please. You will do what I ask, will you not?"

"I will see him, my lord, as it is your pleasure."

"Use all your powers of persuasion. Tell him that I want to cut a new road, to find employment for the men; and if the station be at Chillacot, the road must go there. If your father—"

"Eight," whispered Jingles as an aside, and looked at Arminell.

"If your father is reasonable, we will begin at once. You see how we are situated. I can understand his reluctance to quit a house where he was born, and for which he has done so much; but then, consider the price offered for it. This offer comes in most fitly now that the mine is abandoned. Your father—"

Again the tutor looked at Arminell.

"Your father must leave, as there is no work for him of the kind he is accustomed to, and a nice little capital would be very serviceable."

"I will go, my lord, at once," said Jingles.

"Thank you, Saltren, thank you. I have to be off to catch the 11.28 train."

He went out of the room through the window by which he had entered.

"Did you hear?" asked the tutor, partly in scorn, partly in pain. "Nine times at the least did he speak of the manganese captain as my father, although he knew perfectly all the while that I am not his son. Did you notice the pointed way in which he spoke? It was as though he suspected that I had got wind of the truth, and would emphatically let me understand that he would never, never acknowledge it, emphatically bid me consider the mining captain as my father. But"—his face darkened with anger—"I am by no means assured that we know the whole truth."