“Mrs. Kervick lives in Italy, at the cost of HER son-in-law. He has large estates in one of the healthiest and most beautiful parts; he has a palace, and more money than he knows what to do with--but it seems that he's not my son-in-law. I could do with Italy very well--but that doesn't enter into anyone's calculations. No! let the worn-out old soldier sell boot-laces on the kerb! That's the spirit of woman-kind. And my daughter Edith--does she care what becomes of me? Listen to me--I secured for her the very greatest marriage in England. She would have been Duchess of Glastonbury today if her husband had not played the fool and drowned himself.”
“What's that you say?” put in Thorpe, swiftly.
“It was as good as suicide,” insisted the General, with doggedness. His face had become a deeper red. “They didn't hit it off together, and he left in a huff, and went yachting with his father, who was his own sailing-master--and, as might be expected, they were both drowned. The title would have gone to her son--but no, of course, she had no son--and so it passed to a stranger--an outsider that had been an usher in a school, or something of that sort. You can fancy what a blow this was to me. Instead of being the grandfather of a Duke, I have a childless widow thrust back upon my hands! Fine luck, eh? And then, to cap all, she takes her six hundred a year and goes off by herself, and gives me the cold shoulder completely. What is it Shakespeare says? 'How sharper than a serpent's teeth'----”
Thorpe brought his fist down upon the table with an emphasis which abruptly broke the quotation in half. He had been frowning moodily at his guest for some minutes, relighting his cigar more than once meanwhile. He had made a mental calculation of what the old man had had to drink, and had reassured himself as to his condition. His garrulity might have an alcoholic basis, but his wits were clear enough. It was time to take a new line with him.
“I don't want to hear you abuse your daughter,” he admonished him now, with a purpose glowing steadily in his firm glance. “Damn it all, why shouldn't she go off by herself, and take care of her own money her own way? It's little enough, God knows, for such a lady as she is. Why should you expect her to support you out of it? No--sit still! Listen to me!”--he stretched out his hand, and laid it with restraining heaviness upon the General's arm--“you don't want to have any row with me. You can't afford it. Just think that over to yourself--you--can't afford--it.”