think, sir, I would have given up my child if I didn't know she was to be married respectable? My child is as dear to me as another man's.'
'I hope she is. And you are a very lucky fellow to have her so well provided for. I've told you all I've got to say, and now you may go.'
'Mr. Gorm!'
'I've nothing more to say; and if I had, I would not say it to you now. Your child shall be taken care of.'
'That's what I call pretty cool on the part of any gen'leman. And you're to break your word,—a regular breach of promise, and nothing aint to come of it! I'll tell you what, Mr. Gorm, you'll find that something will come of it. What do you think I took this letter for?'
'You took it, I hope, for Mary's protection.'
'And by ——— she shall be protected.'
'She shall, undoubtedly; but I fear not by you. For the present I will protect her; and I hope that soon a husband will do so who will love her. Now, Mr. Snow, I've told you all I've got to say, and I must trouble you to leave me.'
Nevertheless there were many more words between them before Graham could find himself alone in his chambers. Though Snow père might be a thought tipsy—a sheet or so in the wind, as folks say, he was not more tipsy than was customary with him, and knew pretty well what he was about. 'And what am I to do with myself, Mr. Gorm?' he asked in a snivelling voice, when the idea began to strike him that it might perhaps be held by the courts of law that his intended son-in-law was doing well by his daughter.
'Work,' said Graham, turning upon him sharply and almost fiercely.
'That's all very well. It's very well to say "Work!"'
'You'll find it well to do it, too. Work, and don't drink. You hardly think, I suppose, that if I had married your daughter I should have found myself obliged to support you in idleness?'
'It would have been a great comfort in my old age to have had a daughter's house to go to,' said Snow, naïvely, and now reduced to lachrymose distress.
But when he found that Felix would do nothing for him; that he would not on the present occasion lend him a sovereign, or even half a crown, he again became indignant and paternal, and in this state of mind was turned out of the room.
'Heaven and earth!' said Felix to himself, clenching his hands and striking the table with both of them at the same moment. That was the man with whom he had proposed to link himself in the closest ties of family connection. Albert Fitzallen did not know Mr. Snow; but it might be a question whether it would not be Graham's duty to introduce them to each other.
