Part 14 (1/2)
”Don't talk like that, don't! You don't know what a wife you've got!
You don't know how she loves you, worthless creature that you are!
Tommy, do say that you love me, just a little bit! There, you needn't squeeze me quite so tight. I can't explain to you all about it. I will some day! There's going to be a duel, perhaps to the death! between the Lord Chancellor and yours to command; and if that august personage, in the figure anyhow, of Sir Tristram Triggs, is not worsted and overthrown, I will give you leave, sir, to say that you do not admire my taste in dress. Tommy, don't.”
II.
After dinner Miss Cullen, strolling about the great gla.s.shouse, all alone, came upon Sir Tristram, also all alone. Although not, probably, more than half an inch taller than the gentleman, she looked,--yes, down at him, as if, comparatively, he were but an insect at her feet.
”Well, Sir Tristram, what amends do you propose to make to me?”
”Miss Cullen?”
”Sir?”
She gazed at him; and this famous lawyer, who had been more than a match for the _olla podrida_ of the law courts, and the champions of the political ring, quailed before a young girl's eyes.
”I fear, Miss Cullen, that I fail to apprehend your meaning.”
”Is it possible that you are an habitual desecrater of that law which you have sworn to uphold, and that, therefore, the details of your crimes are apt to escape your memory? More than three months have elapsed since you committed your crime. So far as I know you have not sought as yet to take advantage of any occasion to offer me atonement.”
Sir Tristram faced round to her with something of the bulldog look which had come upon his face when he had found himself in front of Mr.
Stanham.
”May I inquire, Miss Cullen, why you go out of your way to use language of such extravagant exaggeration? It would be gross absurdity, amounting almost to prost.i.tution of language, to call the offence of which I was guilty, if it was an offence, a crime.”
”Perhaps it is because you are a lawyer that you are unaware that not so very long ago a man was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for exactly the same thing.”
Sir Tristram fidgeted. He seemed not to have complete control over his tongue.
”Miss Cullen, I trust that I may never be found lacking in respect to a lady. If I have been so unfortunate as to have offended you I proffer you my most sincere apologies, and I humbly entreat for your forgiveness.”
Miss Cullen remained, obviously, wholly unmoved.
”When a criminal expresses his contrition, is he held, by so doing, to have sufficiently purged himself of his offence?”
”What is it that you require of me?”
”I am told that you are to be the new Lord Chancellor. I am a ward in chancery.”
”I learn the fact with the greatest pleasure.”
”Do you? Then your pleasure bears a strong resemblance to my pain. I am to remain a ward till I am twenty-five.”
”Indeed?”
Sir Tristram began to rub his hands.
”Yes, indeed! I had an objectionable uncle who was so foolish as to suppose that I could not be a better judge of my own life's happiness than--a number of elderly gentlemen.”
”Hem!” Sir Tristram coughed.