But old Trevor was not equally innocent; he trembled a little within himself at that story of remorseless self-preservation. The wolves were the image he had himself used, and when he remembered that he had looked forward to their struggle with amusement, and indeed done his utmost to draw them together, without much regard for the lamb who was to escape as she could from their clutches, a momentary tremor of conscience came over him. But it did not last long; impressions of this kind seldom do; and when he received a second visit in the evening, this time from Philip Rainy, who expressed much solicitude about his health, old Trevor had ceased to feel any compunctions about the fierce competition to which he was going to expose his child. But he was firmly determined that the first and most natural competitor, the man who was of the family, and had a sort of claim to everything that belonged to the name, should not be, so to speak, in the running at all.
“I am very well,” he said, “quite well, thank you; there is nothing the matter with me. If people say to the contrary, they’re lying, or at best they’re fools meddling in other folks’ affairs. It’s nothing to any one if I’m ill or well.”
“You must pardon me, uncle,” said Philip, “but it is something to me.”
The familiar grin came upon the old man’s face; but it was not accompanied with a chuckle of not unkindly mirth, as it had been in the case of Mrs. Stone’s nephew, in whose favor there was no such potent, argument.
“I don’t know what it should be to you,” he said, “Mr. Philip Rainy: if you had been waiting for my shoes I could have understood; but you’ve got ’em, you’ve got ’em, more fool I; and if you think there is anything more coming to you when I die, you’re mistaken, that’s all I’ve got to say. My will’s made--and there’s no legacies in it, not one. My money goes to them that have a right to it. There’s no fancy items to satisfy those that have gone out of their way, or thought they’d gone out of their way, to flatter an old man. So that it’s no good, no possible good, to take that friendly interest in me.”
Lucy, who was sitting by when this was said, started and got up from her knitting, and went once more behind her father, where she stood looking pitifully at Philip, clasping her hands together, and imploring him with her eyes not to be angry. That would have been inducement enough to bear with the old man’s brutal incivility, if there had been nothing more. He gave her a slight, almost imperceptible nod, reassuring her, and answered with a calmness which did him infinite credit, and indeed cost him a great effort.