"Never until after I was married, when we are specially enjoined by the great Apostle----"
"Then I'm sorry for your wife, for she must have had a lot to teach you. But let's stop slanging, we have our own opinions of each other and there's an end. Now we have both the same object, you because you are a pious crank and no more human than a dried eel, and I because I am a man of the world who want to see my daughter where she ought to be, wearing a coronet in the House of Lords. The question is: How is the job to be done? You don't understand Isobel, but I do. If her back is put up, wild horses won't move her. She'd snap her fingers in my face, and tell me to go to a place that you are better acquainted with than I am, or will be, and take my money with me. Of course, I could hold her for a few months, till she is of age perhaps, but after that, No. So it seems that the only chance is your son. Now, what's his weak point? Can he be bought off?"
"Certainly not," said Mr. Knight.
"Oh! that's odd in one who, you say, is a fortune-hunter. Well, what is it? Everyone has a weak point, and another girl won't do just now."
"His weakest point is his fondness for that treacherous and abominable sex of which I have just had so painful an example; and in the church too, yes, in my church."
"And a jolly good place to get to in such a rain, for of course they didn't know that you were hiding under the pews. But I've told you that cock won't fight at present. What's the next?"
At these accumulated insults Mr. Knight turned perfectly livid with suppressed rage. But he did suppress it, for he had an object to gain which, to his perverted mind, was the most important in the whole world--namely, the final separation of his son and Isobel.
"His next bad point," he went on, "is his pride, which is abnormal, although from childhood I have done my best to inculcate humility of spirit into his heart. He cannot bear any affront, or even neglect. For instance, he left me for some years just because he did not consider that he was received properly on his return from Switzerland; also because he went into a rage, for he has a very evil temper if roused, when I suggested that he wanted to run after your daughter's money."
"Well, it wasn't a very nice thing to say, was it? But I think I see light. He's proud, is he, and don't like allusions to fortune-hunting. All right; I'll rub his nose in the dirt and make him good. I'm just the boy for a job of that sort, as perhaps you will agree, my reverend friend; and if he shows his airs to me, I'll kick him off the premises. Come on! I dare say we shall find them still in the church, where they think themselves so snug, although the rain has stopped."