As Colonel Trump says, "There is nothing forbidding to any man, about a
fine woman." Geoffery, therefore, now that he had placed more serious
concerns in such excellent hands, had no objection to the recreation of
a _tete-a-tete_ on the footing of a received lover, with a young woman,
whose personal attractions were above mediocrity, and whose modesty was
not likely to be troublesome; while from her inferiority of station, her
ideas of the high honour conferred on her by the gentleman's addresses
were calculated to smooth the way to advances, which an equal might have
thought impertinent, or at least premature.
When, therefore, Mr. Fips returned, after an absence of full two hours,
he found the candle-wicks ominously long, and neither the tea-things nor
the lover sent away.
Yet Geoffery had not the most distant thought of making Miss Fips his
wife; unless, indeed, circumstances compelled him so entirely to commit
himself to Mr. Fips, as to be completely in his power, and so make it a
matter of prudence to secure his secrecy, by what, with too many, is the
only infallible bond of good faith, identity of interest. But, if on the
other hand, he should be so fortunate as not to be obliged to make use
of Fips, more than as a tool, with which to work up the material in the
way of extraordinary combinations of circumstances that fate seemed so
liberally to have provided; and that, by the operation of those so
worked, he should succeed in obtaining what had so long been the object,
though for many years back the hopeless one, of his ambition--the Arden
estates, Fips having nothing more to bring against him than surmises
that the acquisition was not disagreeable to him--he should set at
nought the tears of Miss Fips, and merely keep Fips's tongue at bay,
with the agency _at will_: and as that was a thing which some one must
have, it was an excellent way of securing the fellow's services first,
and even his good behaviour afterwards, on very reasonable terms. For
the present, however, while all was yet at stake; while there was no
saying what villany might be necessary to carry him through; it was
highly politic, to give Fips, at the outset, a motive, which would make
him ready to perform any service that might be required of him.
Geoffery's calculations were perfectly just: Fips had indeed been
indefatigable; and, during the two hours he had been out, had not only
performed his delicate mission to the coroner, with consummate skill;
but had contrived to drop in at innumerable houses, and, on pretext of
asking the news, to give circulation to many evil reports and wicked
surmises. He gossiped away, in particular, about there having existed
but little cordiality between the brothers of late, in consequence of an
unfortunate rivalship; in which, too, he said it must be confessed that
Sir Alfred was very ill-treated. And the lady was an heiress too; so
that Sir Alfred being a younger brother, the match was a great object to
him. He had been accepted, in fact (the lawyer declared that he had it
on the best authority), when Sir Willoughby, most ungenerously
interfered, and by the strength of his purse, carried off the prize.