"And of course that means my brother Philip's consent," exclaimed George Sheldon, with contemptuous impatience. "What a slow, bungling fellow you are, Hawkehurst! Here is an immense fortune waiting for you, and a pretty girl in love with you, and you dawdle and deliberate as if you were going to the dentist's to have a tooth drawn. You've fallen into a position that any man in London might envy, and you don't seem to have the smallest capability of appreciating your good luck."

"Well, perhaps I am rather slow to realise the idea of my good fortune," answered Valentine, still very thoughtfully. "You see, in the first place, I can't get over a shadowy kind of feeling with regard to that Haygarthian fortune. It is too far away from my grasp, too large, too much of the stuff that dreams and novels are made of. And, in the second place, I love Miss Halliday so fondly and so truly that I don't like the notion of making my marriage with her any part of the bargain between you and me."

Mr. Sheldon contemplated his confederate with unmitigated disdain. "Don't try that sort of thing with me, Hawkehurst," he said; "that sentimental dodge may answer very well with some men, but I'm about the last to be taken in by it. You are playing fast-and-loose with me, and you want to throw me over—as my brother Phil would throw me over, if he got the chance."

"I am not playing fast-and-loose with you," replied Valentine, too disdainful of Mr. Sheldon for indignation. "I have worked for you faithfully, and kept your secret honourably, when I had every temptation to reveal it. You drove your bargain with me, and I have performed my share of the bargain to the letter. But if you think I am going to drive a bargain with you about my marriage with Miss Halliday, you are very much mistaken. That lady will marry me when she pleases, but she shall not be entrapped into a clandestine marriage for your convenience."

"O, that's your ultimatum, is it, Mr. Joseph Surface?" said the lawyer, biting his nails fiercely, and looking askant at his ally, with angry eyes. "I wonder you don't wind up by saying that the man who could trade upon a virtuous woman's affection for the advancement of his fortune, deserves to—get it hot, as our modern slang has it. Then I am to understand that you decline to precipitate matters?"

"I most certainly do."

"And the Haygarth business is to remain in abeyance while Miss Halliday goes through the tedious formula of a sentimental courtship?"

"I suppose so."

"Humph! that's pleasant for me."

"Why should you make the advancement of Miss Halliday's claims contingent on her marriage? Why not assert her rights at once?"