Page:What will he do with it.djvu/494

484 This answer being intimated to Jasper, that gentleman observed "that it was no more than he had expected from Mr. Darrell's sense of honor," and apparently quite satisfied, carried himself and his £10,000 back to Paris. Not long after, however, he wrote to Mr. Gotobed that "Mr. Darrell, having alluded to an equivalent for the £200 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 to see there the quarterly interest of the £10,000, 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, etc., etc. Without presuming to dictate any definite sum, he would observe that £1500, or even £1000, would be of more avail to his views and objects in life than an annuity of £200 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 £200 a-year should therefore be placed on the same footing as the £500 a-year that had been allowed on a capital of £10,000; that accordingly it might be held to represent a principal of £4000, for which he inclosed a check, 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 £4000, 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 magnanières, etc., which would yield an immense increase of profit. That if, to insure him to have a share in this lucrative purchase, Mr. Darrell could accommodate him for a year with a lone of £2000 or £3000, he sanguinely calculated on attaining so high a position in the commercial world, as, though it could not render the recollection of his alliance more obtrusive to Mr. Darrell, would render it less humiliating."

Mr. Gotobed, in obedience to the peremptory instructions he had received from his client, did not refer this letter to Darrell,