Dunn bowed graciously, but did not speak.

"We have so much to talk over--so many things to arrange--that I am quite provoked at having thrown away a day; and you, too, are possibly pressed for time?"

He nodded in assent.

"You can give me to-morrow, however?"

"I can give you to-night, my Lord, which will, perhaps, do as well."

"But to-morrow--"

"Oh, to-morrow, my Lord, I start with Baron Glumthal for Frankfort, to meet the Elector of Darmstadt,--an appointment that cannot be broken."

"Politically most important, I have no doubt," said the Viscount, with an undisguised sarcasm in the tone.

"No, my Lord, a mere financial affair," said Dunn, not heeding the other's manner. "His Highness wants a loan, and we are willing to accommodate him."

"I wish I could find you in the same liberal spirit. It is the very thing I stand in need of Just now. In fact, Dunn, you must do it."

The half-coaxing accent of these last words was a strong contrast to the sneer of a few seconds before, and Dunn smiled as he heard them.

"I fancy, my Lord, that if you are still of the same mind as before, you will have little occasion to arrange for a loan in any quarter."

"Pooh! pooh! the scheme is absurd. It has not one, but fifty obstacles against it. In the first place, you know nothing of this fellow, or whether he can be treated with. As for myself, I do not believe one word about his claim. Why, sir, there's not a titled house in England has not at some period or other been assailed with this sort of menace. It is the stalest piece of knavery going. If you were to poll the peers to-morrow, you 'd not meet two out of ten have not been served with notice of action, or ejectment on the title; in fact, sir, these suits are a profession, and a very lucrative one, too."

Lord Lackington spoke warmly, and ere he had finished had lashed himself up into a passion. Meanwhile Duun sat patiently, like one who awaited the storm to pass by ere he advanced upon his road.

"I conclude, from your manner, that you do not agree with me?" said the Viscount.

"Your Lordship opines truly. I take a very different view of this transaction. I have had all the documents of Conway's claim before me. Far more competent judges have seen and pronounced upon them. They constitute a most formidable mass of evidence, and, save in a very few and not very important details, present an unbroken chain of testimony."

"So, then, there is a battery preparing to open fire upon us?" said the Viscount, with a laugh of ill-affected indifference.

"There is a mine whose explosion depends entirely upon your Lordship's discretion. If I say, my Lord, that I never perused a stronger case, I will also say that I never heard of one so easy of management The individual in whose favor these proofs exist has not the slightest knowledge of them. He has not a suspicion that all his worldly prospects put together are worth a ten-pound note. It is only within the last three months that I have succeeded in even discovering where he is."

"And where is he?"

"Serving as a soldier with his regiment in the Crimea. He was in hospital at Scutari when I first heard, but since that returned to duty with his regiment."

"What signifies all this? The fellow himself is nothing to us!"

Dunn again waited till this burst of anger had passed, and then resumed,--

"My Lord, understand me well. You can deal with this case now; six months hence it may be clear and clean beyond all your power of interference. If Conway's claim derive, as I have strong ground to believe it, from the elder branch, the estate and the title are both his."

"You are a hardy fellow, a very hardy fellow, Mr. Dunn, to make such a speech as this!"

"I said, 'If,' my Lord--'If' is everything here. The assumption is that Reginald Conway was summoned by mistake to the House of Peers in Henry the Seventh's reign,--the true Baron Lackington being then an exile. It is from him this Conway's descent claims."

"I'm not going to constitute myself a Committee of Privileges, sir, and listen to all this jargon; nor can I easily conceive that the unshaken possession of centuries is to be disturbed by the romantic pretensions of a Crimean soldier. I am also aware how men of your cloth conduct these affair to their own especial advantage. They assume to be the arbiters of the destinies of great families, and they expect to be paid for their labors,--eh, is n't it so?"

"I believe your Lordship has very accurately defined our position, though, perhaps, we might not quite agree as to the character of the remuneration."

"How so? What do you mean?"

"I, for instance, my Lord, would furnish no bill of costs to either party. My relations with your Lordship are such as naturally give me a very deep interest in what concerns you; of Mr. Conway I know nothing."

"So, then, you are simply moved in this present affair by a principle of pure benevolence; you are to be a sort of providence to the House of Lackington,--eh, is that it?"

"Your Lordship's explanation is most gracious," said Dunn, bowing.

"Come, now; let us talk seriously," said the Viscount, in a changed tone. "What is it you propose?"

"What I would _suggest_, my Lord," said Dunn, with a marked emphasis on the word, "is this. Submit the documents of this claim--we can obtain copies of the most important of them--to competent opinion, learn if they be of the value I attribute to them, see, in fact, if this claim be prosecuted, whether it is likely to succeed at law, and, if so, anticipate the issue by a compromise."

"But what compromise?"

"Your Lordship has no heir. Your brother, who stands next in succession, need not marry. This point at once decided, Conway's claim can take its course after Mr. Beecher's demise. The estates secured to your Lordship for life will amply guarantee a loan to the extent you wish."

"But they are mine, sir; they are mine this moment. I can go into the market to-morrow and raise what amount I please--"

"Take care, my Lord, take care; a single imprudent step might spoil all.

If you were to negotiate a mere ten thousand to-morrow, you might be met by the announcement that your whole property was about to be litigated, and your title to it contested. Too late to talk of compromise, then."

"This sounds very like a threat, Mr. Dunn."

"Then have I expressed myself most faultily, my Lord; nor was there anything less near my thoughts."

"Would you like to see my brother? He shall call on you in Dublin; you will be there by--when?"

"Wednesday week, my Lord; and it is a visit would give me much pleasure."

"If I were to tell you my mind frankly, Dunn," said the Viscount, in a more assured tone, "I 'd say, I would not give a ten-pound note to buy up this man's whole claim. Annesley, however, has a right to be consulted; he has an interest only second to my own. See him, talk it over with him, and write, to me."

"Where shall I address you, my Lord?"

"Florence; I shall leave this at once,--to-night," said Lord Lackington, impatiently; for, somehow,--we are not going to investigate wherefore,--he was impatient to be off, and see no more of those he had been so intimate with.

CHAPTER XII. ANNESLEY BEECHER'S "PAL"

Lord Lackington was not much of a letter-writer; correspondence was not amongst the habits of his day. The society in which he moved, and of which, to some extent, he was a type, cared more for conversational than epistolary graces. They kept their good things for their dinner-parties, and hoarded their smart remarks on life for occasions where the success was a personal triumph. Twice or thrice, however, every year, he was obliged to write. His man of business required to be reminded of this or that necessity for money, and his brother Annesley should also be admonished, or reproved, or remonstrated with, in that tone of superiority and influence so well befitting one who pays an annuity to him who is the recipient. In fact, around this one circumstance were grouped all the fraternal feelings and brotherly interest of these two men. One hundred and twenty-five pounds sterling every half-year represented the ties of blood that united them; and while it offered to the donor the proud reflection of a generous self-sacrifice, it gave to him who received the almost as agreeable occasion for sarcastic allusion to the other's miserly habits and sordid nature, with a contrast of what he himself had done were their places in life reversed.

It was strange enough that the one same incident should have begotten such very opposite emotions; and yet the two phrases, "If you knew all I have done for him," and the rejoinder, "You 'd not believe the beggarly pittance he allows me," were correct exponents of their several feelings.

Not impossible is it that each might have made out a good case against the other. Indeed, it was a theme whereon, in their several spheres, they were eloquent; and few admitted to the confidence of either had not heard of the utter impossibility of doing anything for Annesley,--his reckless folly, his profligacy, and his waste; and, on the other hand, "the incredible meanness of Lackington, with at least twelve thousand a year, and no children to provide for, giving me the salary of an upper butler." Each said far too much in his own praise not to have felt, at least, strong misgivings in his conscience. Each knew far too well that the other had good reason in many things he said; but so long had their plausibilities been repeated, that each ended by satisfying himself he was a paragon of fraternal affection, and, stranger still, had obtained for this opinion a distinct credence in their several sets in society; so that every peer praised the Viscount, and every hard-up younger son pitied poor Annesley, and condemned the "infamous conduct of the old coxcomb his brother."