Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/631

Rh raised her right hand, and smote me hard upon the cheek.

"Give me back those papers I give me back those papers!" She tore them out of my hands, and tossed them on her table. Then seaung herself defiantly in her great chair, and folding her arms, she stabbed me to the heart with the unlooked-for reproach,

"You worldly wretch!"

"Worldly?" I cried. "Worldly?"

"This, if you please," she went on with supreme scorn, pointing me out, as if there was some one there to see,— "this, if you please, is the disinterested scholar, with not a design beyond his books! This, if you please, is the simple creature whom any one could overreach in a bargain! This, if you please, is Mr. Silverman! Not of this world; not he! He has too much simplicity for this world's cunning. lie has too much singleness of purpose to be a match for this world's double-dealing. What did he give you for it?"

"For what? And who?"

"How much," she asked, bending forward in her great chair, and insultingly tapping the fingers of her right hand on the palm of her left,—"how much does Mr Granville Wharton pay you for getting him Adelina's money? What is the amount of your percentage upon Adelina's fortune! What were the terms of the agreement that you proposed to this boy when you, the Rev. George Silverman, licensed to marry, engaged to put him in possession of the girl? You made good terms for yourself, whatever they were. He would stand a poor chance against your keenness."

Bewildered, horrified, stunned by this cruel perversion, I could not speak. But I trust that I looked innocent, Being so. "Listen to me, shrewd hypocrite," said my lady, whose anger increased as she gave it utterance; "attend to my words, you cunning schemer, who have carried this plot through with such a practiced double face that I have never suspected you. I had my projects for my daughter; pojects for family connection; projects for fortune. You have thwarted them, and overreached me; but I am not one to be thwarted and overreached without retaliation. Do you mean to hold this living another month?"