She began to rock herself over the head of her stick again in that dreadful fashion which had alarmed Comethup before. The boy would have been glad to escape from an interview in which he appeared to have no part, but that Miss Carlaw had laid her hand again on his shoulder, and was detaining him beside her.
"O Bob, Bob, what a humbug you are! You're one of those fellows who can't take a straight line. If fifty different roads branched out before you, and you were blindfolded, and forty-nine of those roads made for good and the other didn't, by the Lord, you'd choose the other! I believe you've always been rather popular with women--I can see you twirling your mustache; I'm sure you are, you dog--but you haven't been popular with me. The others had ordinary eyes to see your perfections; I had other eyes which served me better." She sat up fiercely, and brought her stick down sharply on the floor. "Why the devil can't you be honest? Why can't you say that you want my money? There, don't protest; I swear I'd like you the better if you'd only say straight out what you want. You've got all our late respected father's cant and none of his firmness. Now, listen to me. Are you listening?"
"I am all attention, my dear Charlotte," replied Mr. Robert Carlaw, humbly.
"Very well, then; let me tell you at once that I'm sick of all this hunting and bowing and scraping after a poor old blind woman's money. Hear me, you rascal! I've had not an ounce of real love or real pity on this benighted earth since my mother died, years and years ago. People have professed to pity me for what they deemed an affliction, and have whispered in the next breath that my money was surely a compensation. There have been men low enough and mean enough to be ready to marry me--professing all sorts of things--for my money; my own flesh and blood, in the shape of my dear brother Bob, is prepared to grovel and bend humbly before me, in the hope that I may remember him, and that he may fatten on what I leave when he has ceased to remember me. Listen to me again. There is no more accursed being on God's grossly mismanaged earth than the forlorn creature with money, and without that which money can not buy. Now, brother Bob, I'm getting old, and there'll be a chance for some of you before long to fly at each other's throats on my account. But I'm going to try an experiment; do you understand me--an experiment?"