After waiting to hold a preliminary consultation with his son, Mr.
Pedgift the elder set forth alone for his interview with Allan at the
great house.
Allowing for the difference in their ages, the son was, in this
instance, so accurately the reflection of the father, that an
acquaintance with either of the two Pedgifts was almost equivalent to an
acquaintance with both. Add some little height and size to the figure
of Pedgift Junior, give more breadth and boldness to his humor, and some
additional solidity and composure to his confidence in himself, and
the presence and character of Pedgift Senior stood, for all general
purposes, revealed before you.
The lawyer’s conveyance to Thorpe Ambrose was his own smart gig, drawn
by his famous fast-trotting mare. It was his habit to drive himself; and
it was one among the trifling external peculiarities in which he and his
son differed a little, to affect something of the sporting character in
his dress. The drab trousers of Pedgift the elder fitted close to his
legs; his boots, in dry weather and wet alike, were equally thick in
the sole; his coat pockets overlapped his hips, and his favorite summer
cravat was of light spotted muslin, tied in the neatest and smallest of
bows. He used tobacco like his son, but in a different form. While the
younger man smoked, the elder took snuff copiously; and it was noticed
among his intimates that he always held his “pinch” in a state of
suspense between his box and his nose when he was going to clinch a good
bargain or to say a good thing. The art of diplomacy enters largely into
the practice of all successful men in the lower branch of the law. Mr.
Pedgift’s form of diplomatic practice had been the same throughout his
life, on every occasion when he found his arts of persuasion required
at an interview with another man. He invariably kept his strongest
argument, or his boldest proposal, to the last, and invariably
remembered it at the door (after previously taking his leave), as if it
was a purely accidental consideration which had that instant occurred to
him. Jocular friends, acquainted by previous experience with this form
of proceeding, had given it the name of “Pedgift’s postscript.” There
were few people in Thorpe Ambrose who did not know what it meant when
the lawyer suddenly checked his exit at the opened door; came back
softly to his chair, with his pinch of snuff suspended between his
box and his nose; said, “By-the-by, there’s a point occurs to me;” and
settled the question off-hand, after having given it up in despair not a
minute before.
This was the man whom the march of events at Thorpe Ambrose had now
thrust capriciously into a foremost place. This was the one friend at
hand to whom Allan in his social isolation could turn for counsel in the
hour of need.
“Good-evening, Mr. Armadale. Many thanks for your prompt attention to my
very disagreeable letter,” said Pedgift Senior, opening the conversation
cheerfully the moment he entered his client’s house. “I hope you
understand, sir, that I had really no choice under the circumstances but
to write as I did?”
“I have very few friends, Mr. Pedgift,” returned Allan, simply. “And I
am sure you are one of the few.”
“Much obliged, Mr. Armadale. I have always tried to deserve your good
opinion, and I mean, if I can, to deserve it now. You found yourself
comfortable, I hope, sir, at the hotel in London? We call it Our hotel.
Some rare old wine in the cellar, which I should have introduced to your
notice if I had had the honor of being with you. My son unfortunately
knows nothing about wine.”
Allan felt his false position in the neighborhood far too acutely to be
capable of talking of anything but the main business of the evening. His
lawyer’s politely roundabout method of approaching the painful subject
to be discussed between them rather irritated than composed him. He came
at once to the point, in his own bluntly straightforward way.
“The hotel was very comfortable, Mr. Pedgift, and your son was very kind
to me. But we are not in London now; and I want to talk to you about
how I am to meet the lies that are being told of me in this place.
Only point me out any one man,” cried Allan, with a rising voice and a
mounting color--“any one man who says I am afraid to show my face in the
neighborhood, and I’ll horsewhip him publicly before another day is over
his head!”
Pedgift Senior helped himself to a pinch of snuff, and held it calmly in
suspense midway between his box and his nose.
“You can horsewhip a man, sir; but you can’t horsewhip a neighborhood,”
said the lawyer, in his politely epigrammatic manner. “We will fight our
battle, if you please, without borrowing our weapons of the coachman yet
a while, at any rate.”
“But how are we to begin?” asked Allan, impatiently. “How am I to
contradict the infamous things they say of me?”
“There are two ways of stepping out of your present awkward position,
sir--a short way, and a long way,” replied Pedgift Senior. “The short
way (which is always the best) has occurred to me since I have heard of
your proceedings in London from my son. I understand that you permitted
him, after you received my letter, to take me into your confidence. I
have drawn various conclusions from what he has told me, which I may
find it necessary to trouble you with presently. In the meantime I
should be glad to know under what circumstances you went to London
to make these unfortunate inquiries about Miss Gwilt? Was it your own
notion to pay that visit to Mrs. Mandeville? or were you acting under
the influence of some other person?”
Allan hesitated. “I can’t honestly tell you it was my own notion,” he
replied, and said no more.
“I thought as much!” remarked Pedgift Senior, in high triumph. “The
short way out of our present difficulty, Mr. Armadale, lies straight
through that other person, under whose influence you acted. That other
person must be presented forthwith to public notice, and must stand in
that other person’s proper place. The name, if you please, sir, to begin
with--we’ll come to the circumstances directly.”
“I am sorry to say, Mr. Pedgift, that we must try the longest way, if
you have no objection,” replied Allan, quietly. “The short way happens
to be a way I can’t take on this occasion.”
The men who rise in the law are the men who decline to take No for an
answer. Mr. Pedgift the elder had risen in the law; and Mr. Pedgift the
elder now declined to take No for an answer. But all pertinacity--even
professional pertinacity included--sooner or later finds its limits; and
the lawyer, doubly fortified as he was by long experience and copious
pinches of snuff, found his limits at the very outset of the interview.
It was impossible that Allan could respect the confidence which Mrs.
Milroy had treacherously affected to place in him. But he had an
honest man’s regard for his own pledged word--the regard which looks
straightforward at the fact, and which never glances sidelong at the
circumstances--and the utmost persistency of Pedgift Senior failed to
move him a hairbreadth from the position which he had taken up. “No” is
the strongest word in the English language, in the mouth of any man who
has the courage to repeat it often enough, and Allan had the courage to
repeat it often enough on this occasion.
“Very good, sir,” said the lawyer, accepting his defeat without the
slightest loss of temper. “The choice rests with you, and you have
chosen. We will go the long way. It starts (allow me to inform you) from
my office; and it leads (as I strongly suspect) through a very miry road
to--Miss Gwilt.”
Allan looked at his legal adviser in speechless astonishment.
“If you won’t expose the person who is responsible in the first
instance, sir, for the inquiries to which you unfortunately lent
yourself,” proceeded Mr. Pedgift the elder, “the only other alternative,
in your present position, is to justify the inquiries themselves.”
“And how is that to be done?” inquired Allan.
“By proving to the whole neighborhood, Mr. Armadale, what I firmly
believe to be the truth--that the pet object of the public protection is
an adventuress of the worst class; an undeniably worthless and dangerous
woman. In plainer English still, sir, by employing time enough and money
enough to discover the truth about Miss Gwilt.”
Before Allan could say a word in answer, there was an interruption at
the door. After the usual preliminary knock, one of the servants came
in.
“I told you I was not to be interrupted,” said Allan, irritably. “Good
heavens! am I never to have done with them? Another letter!”
“Yes, sir,” said the man, holding it out. “And,” he added, speaking
words of evil omen in his master’s ears, “the person waits for an
answer.”
Allan looked at the address of the letter with a natural expectation of
encountering the handwriting of the major’s wife. The anticipation was
not realized. His correspondent was plainly a lady, but the lady was not
Mrs. Milroy.
“Who can it be?” he said, looking mechanically at Pedgift Senior as he
opened the envelope.
Pedgift Senior gently tapped his snuff-box, and said, without a moment’s
hesitation, “Miss Gwilt.”
Allan opened the letter. The first two words in it were the echo of the
two words the lawyer had just pronounced. It _was_ Miss Gwilt!
Once more, Allan looked at his legal adviser in speechless astonishment.
“I have known a good many of them in my time, sir,” explained Pedgift
Senior, with a modesty equally rare and becoming in a man of his age.
“Not as handsome as Miss Gwilt, I admit. But quite as bad, I dare say.
Read your letter, Mr. Armadale--read your letter.”
Allan read these lines:
“Miss Gwilt presents her compliments to Mr. Armadale and begs to know if
it will be convenient to him to favor her with an interview, either this
evening or to-morrow morning. Miss Gwilt offers no apology for making
her present request. She believes Mr. Armadale will grant it as an act
of justice toward a friendless woman whom he has been innocently the
means of injuring, and who is earnestly desirous to set herself right in
his estimation.”
Allan handed the letter to his lawyer in silent perplexity and distress.
The face of Mr. Pedgift the elder expressed but one feeling when he
had read the letter in his turn and had handed it back--a feeling of
profound admiration. “What a lawyer she would have made,” he exclaimed,
fervently, “if she had only been a man!”
“I can’t treat this as lightly as you do, Mr. Pedgift,” said Allan.
“It’s dreadfully distressing to me. I was so fond of her,” he added, in
a lower tone--“I was so fond of her once.”
Mr. Pedgift Senior suddenly became serious on his side.
“Do you mean to say, sir, that you actually contemplate seeing Miss
Gwilt?” he asked, with an expression of genuine dismay.
“I can’t treat her cruelly,” returned Allan. “I have been the means of
injuring her--without intending it, God knows! I can’t treat her cruelly
after that!”
“Mr. Armadale,” said the lawyer, “you did me the honor, a little while
since, to say that you considered me your friend. May I presume on that
position to ask you a question or two, before you go straight to your
own ruin?”
“Any questions you like,” said Allan, looking back at the letter--the
only letter he had ever received from Miss Gwilt.
“You have had one trap set for you already, sir, and you have fallen
into it. Do you want to fall into another?”
“You know the answer to that question, Mr. Pedgift, as well as I do.”
“I’ll try again, Mr. Armadale; we lawyers are not easily discouraged. Do
you think that any statement Miss Gwilt might make to you, if you do
see her, would be a statement to be relied on, after what you and my son
discovered in London?”
“She might explain what we discovered in London,” suggested Allan, still
looking at the writing, and thinking of the hand that had traced it.
“_Might_ explain it? My dear sir, she is quite certain to explain it!
I will do her justice: I believe she would make out a case without a
single flaw in it from beginning to end.”
That last answer forced Allan’s attention away from the letter. The
lawyer’s pitiless common sense showed him no mercy.
“If you see that woman again, sir,” proceeded Pedgift Senior, “you will
commit the rashest act of folly I ever heard of in all my experience.
She can have but one object in coming here--to practice on your weakness
for her. Nobody can say into what false step she may not lead you, if
you once give her the opportunity. You admit yourself that you have been
fond of her; your attentions to her have been the subject of general
remark; if you haven’t actually offered her the chance of becoming Mrs.
Armadale, you have done the next thing to it; and knowing all this, you
propose to see her, and to let her work on you with her devilish beauty
and her devilish cleverness, in the character of your interesting
victim! You, who are one of the best matches in England! You, who are
the natural prey of all the hungry single women in the community! I
never heard the like of it; I never, in all my professional experience,
heard the like of it! If you must positively put yourself in a
dangerous position, Mr. Armadale,” concluded Pedgift the elder, with
the everlasting pinch of snuff held in suspense between his box and his
nose, “there’s a wild-beast show coming to our town next week. Let in
the tigress, sir; don’t let in Miss Gwilt!”
For the third time Allan looked at his lawyer. And for the third time
his lawyer looked back at him quite unabashed.
“You seem to have a very bad opinion of Miss Gwilt,” said Allan.
“The worst possible opinion, Mr. Armadale,” retorted Pedgift Senior,
coolly. “We will return to that when we have sent the lady’s messenger
about his business. Will you take my advice? Will you decline to see
her?”
“I would willingly decline--it would be so dreadfully distressing to
both of us,” said Allan. “I would willingly decline, if I only knew
how.”
“Bless my soul, Mr. Armadale, it’s easy enough! Don’t commit _you_
yourself in writing. Send out to the messenger, and say there’s no
answer.”
The short course thus suggested was a course which Allan positively
declined to take. “It’s treating her brutally,” he said; “I can’t and
won’t do it.”
Once more the pertinacity of Pedgift the elder found its limits, and
once more that wise man yielded gracefully to a compromise. On receiving
his client’s promise not to see Miss Gwilt, he consented to Allan’s
committing himself in writing under his lawyer’s dictation. The letter
thus produced was modeled in Allan’s own style; it began and ended in
one sentence. “Mr. Armadale presents his compliments to Miss Gwilt,
and regrets that he cannot have the pleasure of seeing her at Thorpe
Ambrose.” Allan had pleaded hard for a second sentence, explaining
that he only declined Miss Gwilt’s request from a conviction that an
interview would be needlessly distressing on both sides. But his legal
adviser firmly rejected the proposed addition to the letter. “When you
say No to a woman, sir,” remarked Pedgift Senior, “always say it in one
word. If you give her your reasons, she invariably believes that you
mean Yes.”
Producing that little gem of wisdom from the rich mine of his
professional experience, Mr. Pedgift the elder sent out the answer to
Miss Gwilt’s messenger, and recommended the servant to “see the fellow,
whoever he was, well clear of the house.”
“Now, sir,” said the lawyer, “we will come back, if you like, to my
opinion of Miss Gwilt. It doesn’t at all agree with yours, I’m afraid.
You think her an object of pity--quite natural at your age. I think her
an object for the inside of a prison--quite natural at mine. You shall
hear the grounds on which I have formed my opinion directly. Let me show
you that I am in earnest by putting the opinion itself, in the first
place, to a practical test. Do you think Miss Gwilt is likely to persist
in paying you a visit, Mr. Armadale, after the answer you have just sent
to her?”
“Quite impossible!” cried Allan, warmly. “Miss Gwilt is a lady; after
the letter I have sent to her, she will never come near me again.”
“There we join issue, sir,” cried Pedgift Senior. “I say she will snap
her fingers at your letter (which was one of the reasons why I objected
to your writing it). I say, she is in all probability waiting her
messenger’s return, in or near your grounds at this moment. I say, she
will try to force her way in here, before four-and-twenty hours more
are over your head. Egad, sir!” cried Mr. Pedgift, looking at his watch,
“it’s only seven o’clock now. She’s bold enough and clever enough
to catch you unawares this very evening. Permit me to ring for the
servant--permit me to request that you will give him orders immediately
to say you are not at home. You needn’t hesitate, Mr. Armadale! If
you’re right about Miss Gwilt, it’s a mere formality. If I’m right, it’s
a wise precaution. Back your opinion, sir,” said Mr. Pedgift, ringing
the bell; “I back mine!”
Allan was sufficiently nettled when the bell rang to feel ready to
give the order. But when the servant came in, past remembrances got the
better of him, and the words stuck in his throat. “You give the order,”
he said to Mr. Pedgift, and walked away abruptly to the window.
“You’re a good fellow!” thought the old lawyer, looking after him, and
penetrating his motive on the instant. “The claws of that she-devil
shan’t scratch you if I can help it.”
The servant waited inexorably for his orders.
“If Miss Gwilt calls here, either this evening, or at any other time,”
said Pedgift Senior, “Mr. Armadale is not at home. Wait! If she asks
when Mr. Armadale will be back, you don’t know. Wait! If she proposes
coming in and sitting down, you have a general order that nobody is to
come in and sit down unless they have a previous appointment with Mr.
Armadale. Come!” cried old Pedgift, rubbing his hands cheerfully when
the servant had left the room, “I’ve stopped her out now, at any
rate! The orders are all given, Mr. Armadale. We may go on with our
conversation.”
Allan came back from the window. “The conversation is not a very
pleasant one,” he said. “No offense to you, but I wish it was over.”
“We will get it over as soon as possible, sir,” said Pedgift Senior,
still persisting, as only lawyers and women _can_ persist, in forcing
his way little by little nearer and nearer to his own object. “Let us go
back, if you please, to the practical suggestion which I offered to you
when the servant came in with Miss Gwilt’s note. There is, I repeat,
only one way left for you, Mr. Armadale, out of your present awkward
position. You must pursue your inquiries about this woman to an end--on
the chance (which I consider next to a certainty) that the end will
justify you in the estimation of the neighborhood.”
“I wish to God I had never made any inquiries at all!” said Allan.
“Nothing will induce me, Mr. Pedgift, to make any more.”
“Why?” asked the lawyer.
“Can you ask me why,” retorted Allan, hotly, “after your son has told
you what we found out in London? Even if I had less cause to be--to be
sorry for Miss Gwilt than I have; even if it was some other woman, do
you think I would inquire any further into the secret of a poor betrayed
creature--much less expose it to the neighborhood? I should think myself
as great a scoundrel as the man who has cast her out helpless on the
world, if I did anything of the kind. I wonder you can ask me the
question--upon my soul, I wonder you can ask me the question!”
“Give me your hand, Mr. Armadale!” cried Pedgift Senior, warmly; “I
honor you for being so angry with me. The neighborhood may say what it
pleases; you’re a gentleman, sir, in the best sense of the word. Now,”
pursued the lawyer, dropping Allan’s hand, and lapsing back instantly
from sentiment to business, “just hear what I have got to say in my own
defense. Suppose Miss Gwilt’s real position happens to be nothing like
what you are generously determined to believe it to be?”
“We have no reason to suppose that,” said Allan, resolutely.
“Such is your opinion, sir,” persisted Pedgift. “Mine, founded on what
is publicly known of Miss Gwilt’s proceedings here, and on what I have
seen of Miss Gwilt herself, is that she is as far as I am from being
the sentimental victim you are inclined to make her out. Gently, Mr.
Armadale! remember that I have put my opinion to a practical test, and
wait to condemn it off-hand until events have justified you. Let me put
my points, sir--make allowances for me as a lawyer--and let me put
my points. You and my son are young men; and I don’t deny that the
circumstances, on the surface, appear to justify the interpretation
which, as young men, you have placed on them. I am an old man--I know
that circumstances are not always to be taken as they appear on the
surface--and I possess the great advantage, in the present case, of
having had years of professional experience among some of the wickedest
women who ever walked this earth.”
Allan opened his lips to protest, and checked himself, in despair
of producing the slightest effect. Pedgift Senior bowed in polite
acknowledgment of his client’s self-restraint, and took instant
advantage of it to go on.
“All Miss Gwilt’s proceedings,” he resumed, “since your unfortunate
correspondence with the major show me that she is an old hand at deceit.
The moment she is threatened with exposure--exposure of some kind, there
can be no doubt, after what you discovered in London--she turns your
honorable silence to the best possible account, and leaves the major’s
service in the character of a martyr. Once out of the house, what does
she do next? She boldly stops in the neighborhood, and serves three
excellent purposes by doing so. In the first place, she shows everybody
that she is not afraid of facing another attack on her reputation. In
the second place, she is close at hand to twist you round her little
finger, and to become Mrs. Armadale in spite of circumstances, if you
(and I) allow her the opportunity. In the third place, if you (and I)
are wise enough to distrust her, she is equally wise on her side, and
doesn’t give us the first great chance of following her to London, and
associating her with her accomplices. Is this the conduct of an unhappy
woman who has lost her character in a moment of weakness, and who has
been driven unwillingly into a deception to get it back again?”
“You put it cleverly,” said Allan, answering with marked reluctance; “I
can’t deny that you put it cleverly.”
“Your own common sense, Mr. Armadale, is beginning to tell you that I
put it justly,” said Pedgift Senior. “I don’t presume to say yet what
this woman’s connection may be with those people at Pimlico. All I
assert is that it is not the connection you suppose. Having stated the
facts so far, I have only to add my own personal impression of Miss
Gwilt. I won’t shock you, if I can help it; I’ll try if I can’t put it
cleverly again. She came to my office (as I told you in my letter), no
doubt to make friends with your lawyer, if she could; she came to tell
me, in the most forgiving and Christian manner, that she didn’t blame
_you_.”
“Do you ever believe in anybody, Mr. Pedgift?” interposed Allan.
“Sometimes, Mr. Armadale,” returned Pedgift the elder, as unabashed as
ever. “I believe as often as a lawyer can. To proceed, sir. When I
was in the criminal branch of practice, it fell to my lot to take
instructions for the defense of women committed for trial from the
women’s own lips. Whatever other difference there might be among them,
I got, in time, to notice, among those who were particularly wicked and
unquestionably guilty, one point in which they all resembled each other.
Tall and short, old and young, handsome and ugly, they all had a secret
self-possession that nothing could shake. On the surface they were as
different as possible. Some of them were in a state of indignation;
some of them were drowned in tears; some of them were full of pious
confidence; and some of them were resolved to commit suicide before the
night was out. But only put your finger suddenly on the weak point in
the story told by any one of them, and there was an end of her rage, or
her tears, or her piety, or her despair; and out came the genuine woman,
in full possession of all her resources with a neat little lie that
exactly suited the circumstances of the case. Miss Gwilt was in tears,
sir--becoming tears that didn’t make her nose red--and I put my finger
suddenly on the weak point in _her_ story. Down dropped her pathetic
pocket-handkerchief from her beautiful blue eyes, and out came
the genuine woman with the neat little lie that exactly suited the
circumstances! I felt twenty years younger, Mr. Armadale, on the spot. I
declare I thought I was in Newgate again, with my note-book in my hand,
taking my instructions for the defense!”
“The next thing you’ll say, Mr. Pedgift,” cried Allan, angrily, “is that
Miss Gwilt has been in prison!”
Pedgift Senior calmly rapped his snuff-box, and had his answer ready at
a moment’s notice.
“She may have richly deserved to see the inside of a prison, Mr.
Armadale; but, in the age we live in, that is one excellent reason
for her never having been near any place of the kind. A prison, in the
present tender state of public feeling, for a charming woman like Miss
Gwilt! My dear sir, if she had attempted to murder you or me, and if an
inhuman judge and jury had decided on sending her to a prison, the first
object of modern society would be to prevent her going into it; and, if
that couldn’t be done, the next object would be to let her out again as
soon as possible. Read your newspaper, Mr. Armadale, and you’ll find we
live in piping times for the black sheep of the community--if they are
only black enough. I insist on asserting, sir, that we have got one of
the blackest of the lot to deal with in this case. I insist on asserting
that you have had the rare luck, in these unfortunate inquiries, to
pitch on a woman who happens to be a fit object for inquiry, in the
interests of the public protection. Differ with me as strongly as you
please, but don’t make up your mind finally about Miss Gwilt until
events have put those two opposite opinions of ours to the test that I
have proposed. A fairer test there can’t be. I agree with you that no
lady worthy of the name could attempt to force her way in here, after
receiving your letter. But I deny that Miss Gwilt is worthy of the name;
and I say she will try to force her way in here in spite of you.”
“And I say she won’t!” retorted Allan, firmly.
Pedgift Senior leaned back in his chair and smiled. There was a
momentary silence, and in that silence the door-bell rang.
The lawyer and the client both looked expectantly in the direction of
the hall.
“No,” cried Allan, more angrily than ever.
“Yes!” cried Pedgift Senior, contradicting him with the utmost
politeness.
They waited the event. The opening of the house door was audible, but
the room was too far from it for the sound of voices to reach the ear as
well. After a long interval of expectation, the closing of the door was
heard at last. Allan rose impetuously and rang the bell. Mr. Pedgift the
elder sat sublimely calm, and enjoyed, with a gentle zest, the largest
pinch of snuff he had taken yet.
“Anybody for me?” asked Allan, when the servant came in.
The man looked at Pedgift Senior, with an expression of unutterable
reverence, and answered, “Miss Gwilt.”
“I don’t want to crow over you, sir,” said Mr. Pedgift the elder, when
the servant had withdrawn. “But what do you think of Miss Gwilt _now_?”
Allan shook his head in silent discouragement and distress.
“Time is of some importance, Mr. Armadale. After what has just happened,
do you still object to taking the course I have had the honor of
suggesting to you?”
“I can’t, Mr. Pedgift,” said Allan. “I can’t be the means of disgracing
her in the neighborhood. I would rather be disgraced myself--as I am.”
“Let me put it in another way, sir. Excuse my persisting. You have been
very kind to me and my family; and I have a personal interest, as well
as a professional interest, in you. If you can’t prevail on yourself
to show this woman’s character in its true light, will you take common
precautions to prevent her doing any more harm? Will you consent
to having her privately watched as long as she remains in this
neighborhood?”
For the second time Allan shook his head.
“Is that your final resolution, sir?”
“It is, Mr. Pedgift; but I am much obliged to you for your advice, all
the same.”
Pedgift Senior rose in a state of gentle resignation, and took up his
hat “Good-evening, sir,” he said, and made sorrowfully for the door.
Allan rose on his side, innocently supposing that the interview was
at an end. Persons better acquainted with the diplomatic habits of his
legal adviser would have recommended him to keep his seat. The time was
ripe for “Pedgift’s postscript,” and the lawyer’s indicative snuff-box
was at that moment in one of his hands, as he opened the door with the
other.
“Good-evening,” said Allan.
Pedgift Senior opened the door, stopped, considered, closed the door
again, came back mysteriously with his pinch of snuff in suspense
between his box and his nose, and repeating his invariable formula,
“By-the-by, there’s a point occurs to me,” quietly resumed possession of
his empty chair.
Allan, wondering, took the seat, in his turn, which he had just left.
Lawyer and client looked at each other once more, and the inexhaustible
interview began again.