Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/229

 "Well?" said I. "You have done it, now!"

"Is he gone?" he asked.

"He is gone," said I. "We shall have the devil to pay with him when he comes back."

"You are right," said the lawyer, "and very little to pay him with but flams and fabrications, like to-night's."

"To-night's?" I repeated.

"Ay, to-night's!" said he.

"To-night's what?" I cried.

"To-night's flams and fabrications." "God be good to me, sir," said I, "have I something more to admire in your conduct than ever I had suspected? You cannot think how you interest me! That it was severe, I knew; I had already chuckled over that. But that it should be false also! In what sense, dear sir?"

I believe I was extremely offensive as I put the question, but the lawyer paid no heed.

"False in all senses of the word," he replied, seriously. "False in the sense that they were not true, and false in the sense that they were not real; false in the sense that I boasted, and in the sense that I lied. How can I arrest him? Your uncle burned the papers! I told you so—but doubtless you have forgotten—the day I first saw you in Edinburgh Castle. It was an act of generosity; I have seen many of these acts, and always regretted—always regretted! 'That shall be his inheritance,' he said, as the papers burned; he did not mean that it should have proved so rich a one. How rich, time will tell."

"I beg your pardon a hundred thousand times, my dear sir, but it strikes me you have the impudence—in the circumstances, I may call it the indecency— to appear cast down?"

"It is true," said he: "I am. I am cast down. I am