'"To balance of account"--what does that mean?'
'It means that it's a business transaction. At the time you couldn't make any further claim against me. That's all it means.'
He put the pencil to the paper again, and wrote the date of the meeting in Hare Court.
'There! If you sign your name to that, it just means that you had no further claim against me on that day. You hadn't, anyway, so you may just as well sign!'
He held out the paper, and Lady Maud took it with a smile and wrote her signature.
'Thank you,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'Now you're quite comfortable, I suppose, for you can't deny that you have given me the usual business acknowledgment. The other part of it is that I don't care to keep that kind of receipt long, so I just strike a match and burn it.' He did so, and watched the flimsy scrap turn black on the stone knight's knee, till the gentle breeze blew the ashes away. 'So there!' he concluded. 'If you were called upon to swear in evidence that you signed a proper receipt for the money, you couldn't deny it, could you? A receipt's good if given at any time after the money has been paid. What's the matter? Why do you look as if you doubted it? What is truth, anyhow? It's the agreement of the facts with the statement of them, isn't it? Well, I don't see but the statement coincides with the facts all right now.'
While he had been talking Lady Maud had poured out the tea, and had cut some thin slices from the lemon, glancing at him incredulously now and then, but smiling in spite of herself.
'That's all sophistry,' she said, as she handed him his cup.
'Thanks,' he answered, taking it from her. 'Look here! Can you deny that you have given me a formal dated receipt for four thousand one hundred pounds?'
'Well, then, what can't be denied is the truth; and if I choose to publish the truth about you, I don't suppose you can find fault with it.'
'Excuse me for interrupting, but there is no "but." What's good in law is good enough for me, and the Attorney-General and all his angels couldn't get behind that receipt now, if they tried till they were black in the face.'
Mr. Van Torp's similes were not always elegant.
'Tip-top tea,' he remarked, as Lady Maud did not attempt to say anything more. 'That was a bright idea of yours, bringing the lemon, too.'