第98章

`You wanted the lord, did you?' he said, stopping short when he reached the door, as if a new light had broken in upon him, and confronting Ralph again. `Damme, I was in the way, was I?'

Ralph smiled again, but made no answer.

`Who brought him to you first?' pursued Sir Mulberry; `and how, without me, could you ever have wound him in your net as you have?'

`The net is a large one, and rather full,' said Ralph. `Take care that it chokes nobody in the meshes.'

`You would sell your flesh and blood for money; yourself, if you have not already made a bargain with the devil,' retorted the other. `Do you mean to tell me that your pretty niece was not brought here as a decoy for the drunken boy downstairs?'

Although this hurried dialogue was carried on in a suppressed tone on both sides, Ralph looked involuntarily round to ascertain that Kate had not moved her position so as to be within hearing. His adversary saw the advantage he had gained, and followed it up.

`Do you mean to tell me,' he asked again, `that it is not so? Do you mean to say that if he had found his way up here instead of me, you wouldn't have been a little more blind, and a little more deaf, and a little less flourishing, than you have been? Come, Nickleby, answer me that.'

`I tell you this,' replied Ralph, `that if I brought her here, as a matter of business --'

`Ay, that's the word,' interposed Sir Mulberry, with a laugh. `You're coming to yourself again now.'

`-- As a matter of business,' pursued Ralph, speaking slowly and firmly, as a man who has made up his mind to say no more, `because I thought she might make some impression on the silly youth you have taken in hand and are lending good help to ruin, I knew -- knowing him -- that it would be long before he outraged her girl's feelings, and that unless he offended by mere puppyism and emptiness, he would, with a little management, respect the sex and conduct even of his usurer's niece. But if I thought to draw him on more gently by this device, I did not think of subjecting the girl to the licentiousness and brutality of so old a hand as you. And now we understand each other.'

`Especially as there was nothing to be got by it -- eh?' sneered Sir Mulberry.

`Exactly so,' said Ralph. He had turned away, and looked over his shoulder to make this last reply. The eyes of the two worthies met, with an expression as if each rascal felt that there was no disguising himself from the other;and Sir Mulberry Hawk shrugged his shoulders and walked slowly out.

His friend closed the door, and looked restlessly towards the spot where his niece still remained in the attitude in which he had left her. She had flung herself heavily upon the couch, and with her head drooping over the cushion, and her face hidden in her hands, seemed to be still weeping in an agony of shame and grief.