"Never," said the attorney, bubbling, "with my good will!"
Soane lost patience at that. "D--n you!" he cried. "Will you be quiet?"
And made a cut at him with his cane. Fortunately the lawyer evaded it
with nimbleness; and having escaped to a safe distance hastened to cry,
"No malice! I bear you no malice, sir!" with so little breath and so
much good-nature that Sir George recovered his balance. "Confound you,
man!" he continued. "Why am I not to speak? I came here to tell this
good woman that if she has a care for this girl the sooner she takes her
from where she is the better! And you cannot let me put a word in."
"You came for that, sir?"
"For what else, fool?"
"I was wrong," said the attorney humbly. "I did not understand. Allow me
to say, sir, that I am entirely of your opinion. The young lady--I mean
she shall be removed to-morrow. It--the whole arrangement is
improper--highly improper."
"Why, you go as fast now as you went slowly before," Sir George said,
observing him curiously.
Mr. Fishwick smiled after a sickly fashion. "I did not understand, sir,"
he said. "But it is most unsuitable, most unsuitable. She shall return
to-morrow at the latest."
Sir George, who had said what he had to say, nodded, grunted, and went
away; feeling that he had performed an unpleasant--and somewhat
doubtful--duty under most adverse circumstances. He could not in the
least comprehend the attorney's strange behaviour; but after some
contemptuous reflection, of which nothing came, he dismissed it as one
of the low things to which he had exposed himself by venturing out of
the charmed circle in which he lived. He hoped that the painful series
was now at an end, stepped into his post-chaise, amid the reverent
salaams of the Mitre, the landlord holding the door; and in a few
minutes had rattled over Folly Bridge, and left Oxford behind him.