There was great confidence between the brother and sister, and as he
walked homeward, Mr. Graeme was not so well pleased with himself as
to think with satisfaction on the report of the interview he could
give Kate. He did not accuse himself with regard to anything he had
said, but he felt his behaviour influenced by jealousy of the
low-born youth who had supplanted him. For, if Percy could not
succeed to the title, neither could he have succeeded to the
property; and but for the will or the marriage, perhaps but for the
two together, he would himself have come in for that also! The will
was worth nothing except the marriage was disputed: annul the
marriage, and the will was of force!
He told his sister, as nearly as he could, all that had passed
between them.
"If he wanted me to talk to him," he said, "why did he tell me that
about Forgue? It was infernally stupid of him! But what's bred in
the bone--! A gentleman 's not made in a day!"
"Nor in a thousand years, Hector!" rejoined his sister. "Donal Grant
is a gentleman in the best sense of the word! That you say he is
not, lets me see you are vexed with yourself. He is a little awkward
sometimes, I confess; but only when he is looking at a thing from
some other point of view, and does not like to say you ought to have
been looking at it from the same. And you can't say he shuffles, for
he never stops till he has done his best to make you!--What have you
been saying to him, Hector?"
"Nothing but what I have told you; it's rather what I have not been
saying!" answered her brother.
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