Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 2.djvu/98

 remained equally entitled, in point of honour, to receive that allowance, or an adequate equivalent."

This answer being intimated to Jasper, that gentleman observed "that it was no more than he had expected from Mr. Darrell's sense of honour," and apparently quite satisfied, carried himself and his L10,000 back to Paris. Not long after, however, he wrote to Mr. Gotobed that "Mr. Darrell having alluded to an equivalent for the L200 a year allowed to him, evidently implying that it was as disagreeable to Mr. Darrell to see that sum entered quarterly in his banker's books, as it had been to see there the quarterly interest of the L10,000, so Jasper might be excused in owning that he should prefer an equivalent. The commercial firm to which he was about to attach himself required a somewhat larger capital on his part than he had anticipated, &c., &c. Without presuming to dictate any definite sum, he would observe that L1,500 or even L1000 would be of more avail to his views and objects in life than an annuity of L200 a year, which, being held only at will, was not susceptible of a temporary loan." Darrell, wrapped in thoughts wholly remote from recollections of Jasper, chafed at being thus recalled to the sense of that person's existence wrote back to the solicitor who transmitted to him this message, "that an annuity held on his word was not to be calculated by Mr. Hammond's notions of its value. That the L200 a year should therefore be placed on the same footing as the L500 a year that had been allowed on a capital of L10,000; that accordingly it might be held to represent a principal of L4,000, for which he enclosed a cheque, begging Mr. Gotobed not only to make Mr. Hammond fully understand that there ended all possible accounts or communication between them, but never again to trouble him with any matters whatsoever in reference to affairs that were thus finally concluded." Jasper, receiving the L4,000, left Darrell and Gotobed in peace till the following year. He then addressed to Gotobed an exceedingly plausible, business-like letter. "The firm he had entered, in the silk trade, was in the most flourishing state--an opportunity occurred to purchase a magnificent mulberry plantation in Provence, with all requisite magnanneries, &c., which would yield an immense increase of profit. That if, to insure him a share in this lucrative purchase, Mr. Darrell could accommodate him