’Tell me your object, Dorothy Beltham, in passing the money through the hands of this man?  Were you for helping him to be a man of his word?  Help the boy—­that I understand.  However, you were mistress of your money!  I’ve no right to complain, if you will go spending a fortune to whitewash the blackamoor!  Well, it’s your own, you’ll say.  So it is:  so ’s your character!’

The egregious mildness of these interjections could not long be preserved.

’You deceived me, ma’am.  You wouldn’t build school-houses, you couldn’t subscribe to Charities, you acted parsimony, to pamper a scamp and his young scholar!  You went to London—­you did it in cool blood; you went to your stockbroker, and from the stockbroker to the Bank, and you sold out stock to fling away this big sum.  I went to the Bank on business, and the books were turned over for my name, and there at “Beltham” I saw quite by chance the cross of the pen, and I saw your folly, ma’am; I saw it all in a shot.  I went to the Bank on my own business, mind that.  Ha! you know me by this time; I loathe spying; the thing jumped out of the book; I couldn’t help seeing.  Now I don’t reckon how many positive fools go to make one superlative humbug; you’re one of the lot, and I’ve learnt it.’

My father airily begged leave to say:  ’As to positive and superlative, Mr. Beltham, the three degrees of comparison are no longer of service except to the trader.  I do not consider them to exist for ladies.  Your positive is always particularly open to dispute, and I venture to assert I cap you your superlative ten times over.’

He talked the stuff for a diversion, presenting in the midst of us an incongruous image of smiles that filled me with I knew not what feelings of angry alienation, until I was somewhat appeased by the idea that he had not apprehended the nature of the words just spoken.

It seemed incredible, yet it was true; it was proved to be so to me by his pricking his ears and his attentive look at the mention of the word prepossessing him in relation to the money:  Government.

The squire said something of Government to my aunt Dorothy, with sarcastical emphasis.

As the observation was unnecessary, and was wantonly thrown in by him, she seized on it to escape from her compromising silence:  ’I know nothing of Government or its ways.’

She murmured further, and looked at Janet, who came to her aid, saying:  ’Grandada, we’ve had enough talk of money, money!  All is done that you wanted done.  Stocks, Shares, Banks—­we’ve gone through them all.  Please, finish!  Please, do.  You have only to state what you have heard from Prince Hermann.’

Janet gazed in the direction of my father, carefully avoiding my eyes, but evidently anxious to shield my persecuted aunty.

‘Speaking of Stocks and Shares, Miss Ilchester,’ said my father, ’I myself would as soon think of walking into a field of scythe-blades in full activity as of dabbling in them.  One of the few instances I remember of our Jorian stooping to a pun, is upon the contango:  ingenious truly, but objectionable, because a pun.  I shall not be guilty of repeating it.  “The stockmarket is the national snapdragon bowl,” he says, and is very amusing upon the Jews; whether quite fairly, Mr. Beltham knows better than I, on my honour.’