Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/256

252 your upper lip, my dear nephew-in-law. Has papa turned up lately?" "Perhaps. I think I shall soon be able to lay my hand upon him." He lays a light and delicate hand on the Marquis's shoulder as he says the words.

"No doubt; but if in the meantime you would kindly refrain from laying it on me, you would oblige—you would really oblige me. Though why," said the Marquis philosophically, addressing himself to Mark Antony, as if he would like to avail himself of that Roman's sagacity, "why we should object to a villain simply because he is a villain, I can't imagine. We may object to him if he is coarse, or dirty, or puts his knife in his mouth, or takes soup twice, or wears ill-made coats, because those things annoy us; but, object to him because he is a liar, or a hypocrite, or a coward? Perfectly absurd! I say, therefore, I consented to the marriage, asked no unnecessary or ill-bred questions, and resigned myself to the force of circumstances; and for some years affairs appeared to go on very smoothly, when suddenly I am startled by a most alarming letter from my niece. She implores me to come to England. She is alone, without a friend, an adviser, and she is determined to reveal all."

"To reveal all!" Raymond cannot repress a start. The sang froid of the Marquis had entirely deceived him whose chief weapon was that very sang froid.

"Yes. What then? You, being aware of this letter having been written—or, say, guessing that such a letter would be written—determine on your course. You will throw over your wife's evidence by declaring her to be mad. Eh? This is what you determine upon, isn't it?" It appears so good a joke to the Marquis, that he laughs and nods at Mark Antony, as if he would really like that respectable Roman to participate in the fun.

For the first time in his life Raymond Marolles has found his match. In the hands of this man he is utterly powerless.

"An excellent idea. Only, as I said before, too obvious—too transparently obvious. It is the only thing you can do. If I were looking for a man, and came to a part of the country where there was but one road, I should of course know that he must—if he went anywhere—go down that road. So with you, my dear Marolles, there was but one resource left you—to disprove the revelations of your wife by declaring them the hallucinations of a maniac. I take no credit to myself for seeing through you, I assure you. There is no talent whatever in finding out that two and two make four; the genius would be the man who made them into five. I do not think I have any thing more to say. I have no wish to attack you, my dear nephew-in-law. I merely wanted to prove to you that I was not your dupe. I think you must be by this time sufficiently