“And we must perfectly understand our position, if anything is to be done,” said Laura, without deigning the slightest notice of his interruptions.
“Might I venture to suggest that one of us seems—or is it an unfortunate misconception on my part—to be slightly in danger of forgetting that position.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Mrs. Lygon,” he said, his tone changing, and his pale face becoming almost savage in expression, “I mean that though I may choose to forget certain things which it is not useful to me at the moment to remember, they need not be forgotten by other persons.”
She turned well-nigh as pale as himself, but looked at him with firmness, and answered calmly,
“I repeat, that I do not understand you.”
“So!” said, or rather cried, Adair, in a high voice, and with angry surprise. He glared at her for a few seconds; but, whatever she may have felt, she stood her ground bravely.
“So,” he repeated. “That is the result of our deliberation. That is the decision of our council of war. We are to fight. Councils of war never vote for fighting, but pass for that. Defiance! Well, it is a bold game, but bold games seldom succeed when I am on the other side. However, it is not with Mrs. Lygon that I have now to do. Her turn may come.”
“I am entirely at a loss to find meaning for your words, “said Mrs. Lygon, “and, perhaps, you will listen to me. If I succeed in procuring more money for you from Mrs. Urquhart, what security have we that this will be your last demand.”
“None whatever.”
“Will it be your last demand?”
“Most certainly not.”
“Do you mean that you intend to persecute her throughout her whole life.”
“I would prefer to say that I hope to induce her to dedicate her life to making mine as happy as it can be when I am deprived of her.”
“Have you ever seen her husband, Mr. Hardwick?”
“The Scottish Urquhart? I long since made it my business to see and to be able to recognise him. He is a fine animal, far too largely framed for elegance, and probably six feet three in height, and proportionately—I will do him that justice—proportionately broad and strong. Is your inquiry intended to direct the conversation towards the possibility of that person and myself ever coming into collision?”
“Do you know his character?”
“Mrs. Lygon’s question scarcely reveals her usual perspicacity. Through my knowledge of Mr. Urquhart’s character I have acted, with much success, upon the character of his wife. This large Scotchman, or Scottishman, as I believe he would prefer to be called, is understood to be of a stern and resolute nature. He is a railway contractor, and it is agreeably recorded of him that upon one occasion he found a crowd of Belgian workmen wasting his time in drinking, when they should have been at their duty. Our admirable friend remonstrated, but Scotch is not the language of persuasion, I suppose, for they would not go to work, and signified the same through a big brave Belgian, their foreman. On which the Scottish giant resorted to the extreme remedy of taking that brave big Belgian into his Caledonian arms, and pitching him bodily off a viaduct to a road I do not know how many feet below, but quite enough to ensure the Belgian’s never rising any more until the day when we shall all rise together. The men then went to their work. The anecdote charmed me very much—excuse my prolixity in retailing it.”
“You have not, perhaps, considered what would be the consequence of Mr. Urquhart’s becoming aware of the course you pursue toward his wife?”
“Do me more justice. I think that being a Scotchman, he would make all reasonable inquiry before acting, but I think that when his preliminary inquiry was complete, he would probably destroy your amiable sister.”
“Yet you refuse,” she said, “to name a sum, which, if paid, would free her from any further importunities on your part?”
“Please to inform me why I should.”
“Because, if she thinks as I do,” said Mrs. Lygon, “she will prefer an hour of sorrow to a life of torment, and unless you are to be bought off at once and for ever, she will throw herself upon the heart of the brave and good man who his married her, explain all, and be—perhaps divorced, perhaps forgiven—but, in either case, she will know the worst.”
“And my neck will infallibly be broken by the giant, as a sort of peace-offering to the manes of departed domestic happiness—that is, of course, part of your delightful programme?”
“I think he would kill you! I hope he would kill you!” said Mrs. Lygon, with a simple frankness that belonged to her old days, and which, in spite of the vindictive character of the words, was by no means so utterly unfeminine as it may be feared that they seem.
Ernest Adair laughed outright.
“That came from the heart,” he said, “and the estimable Goethe, whom I idolise, has told us that whatever comes from the heart is divine and to be honoured, in which he differs from certain other authorities. But, as I have said, I shall endeavour to protect myself against such a casualty; and I have the best means of knowing when anything likely to lead to it takes place in Mr. Urquhart’s house.”
“Spies, too, upon her.”
“Well, it is not much in France. Here we are accustomed to surveillance, and a little of it more or less is not worth counting.”
Mrs. Lygon could not reply.
“I am happy to see that I convince you. Well, you will go to Paris, and see your admirable sister, and between you, as in the old days, you will strike out some plan for preventing my having the humiliation of so frequently being compelled to remind her of my need.”
“Where am I to send to you?”
“Fear no trouble on that account. A single word on a card, which you can entrust to Mrs. Urquhart’s maid, Henderson, will bring me to any place you may indicate.”
