‘Leave ’em alone. They all mean mischief.’
‘Well, it is not everyone who is such a cool hand as you are.’
‘So much the worse for other people,’ was the reply. ‘But in the case of that Sloville girl, I really don’t see you have anything to reproach yourself with. She ran away from you, did she not? and I don’t see how any mischief could be made of that. I suppose she is still able to carry on the highly respectable calling of a dressmaker; I think she was that. She was an uncommonly fine girl; there was quite a style about her; and a girl like that can’t take much harm—that is, as long as she keeps her good looks.’
‘Oh no, the girl is all right. She is now the popular Miss Howard, of the --- Theatre.’
‘The deuce she is! Why, then, don’t you make it up with her? A bracelet and a dinner at the Star and Garter will do the trick.’
‘I fear not. The fact is, I met her accidentally a short time ago, and she held her head as high as Lucifer.’
‘Only acting, my dear boy. ’Tis only pretty Fanny’s way. ’Tis well—she might have come to you for money.’
‘I wish she had. That would have given me a pull on her.’
‘She might have served you with an action for breach of promise.’
‘She was young. I don’t feel sure that she might not have had you up under the Act which makes the parent the guardian of the child till she is sixteen.’
‘Perhaps she wants to excite you. She knows now that you are a single man, and she thinks it well to begin the renewal of her acquaintance with a little seasonable aversion.’
‘The fact is, she not only treated me with aversion, but she cut me dead.’
‘Yes, it was. I was always fond of her, and I am mad to get hold of her again.’
‘That ought not to be difficult to Sir Watkin Strahan.’
‘Perhaps not. But there is a man in the case—a newspaper fellow—the fellow, in short, who had the impudence to come down to Sloville to contest the borough. I believe he lost me the seat. I believe the girl got him to do it out of revenge.’
‘So I will before I’ve done with him. You may be sure I’ll have my revenge,’ said the Baronet angrily.
‘Yes, I can trust you for that,’ said his friend. ‘You are a good fellow, Sir Watkin, but you neither forget nor forgive.’
‘No, we don’t in our family, and we have found it answer our purpose very well.’