answered. 'But before this about her birth came out, I
fancied that you were doing, or going about to do the girl no good. Now,
my dear Sir George, I am not strait-laced,' the doctor continued,
dusting the snuff from the lappets of his coat, 'and I know very well
what your friend, my Lord March, would do in the circumstances. And you
have lived much, with him, and think yourself, I dare swear, no better.
But you are, my dear sir--you are, though you may not know it. You are
wondering what I am at? Inclined to take offence, eh? Well, she's a good
girl, Sir George'--he tapped the letter, which lay on the table beside
him--'too good for that! And you'll not lay it on your conscience,
I hope.'

'I will not,' Sir George said quietly.

'Good lad!' Dr. Addington muttered, in the tone Lord Chatham had used;
for it is hard to be much with the great without trying on their shoes.
'Good lad! Good lad!'

Soane did not appear to notice the tone. 'You think an allowance of a
hundred guineas enough?' he said, and looked at the other.

'I think it very handsome,' the doctor answered. 'D----d handsome.'

'Good!' Sir George rejoined. 'Then she shall have that allowance;' and
after staring awhile at the table he nodded assent to his thoughts
and went out.

CHAPTER XXXVII

A HANDSOME ALLOWANCE

The physician might not have deemed his friend so sensible--or so
insensible--had he known that the young man proposed to make the offer
of that allowance in person. Nor to Sir George Soane himself, when he
alighted five days later before The George Inn at Wallingford, did the
offer seem the light and easy thing,

'Of smiles and tears compact,'

it had appeared at Marlborough. He recalled old clashes of wit, and here
and there a spark struck out between them, that, alighting on the flesh,
had burned him. Meanwhile the arrival of so fine a gentleman, travelling
in a post-chaise and four, drew a crowd about the inn. To give the
idlers time to disperse, as well as to remove the stains of the road, he
entered the house, and, having bespoken dinner and the best rooms,
inquired the way to Mr. Fishwick the attorney's. By this time his
servant had blabbed his name; and the story of the duel at Oxford being
known, with some faint savour of his fashion, the landlord was his most
obedient, and would fain have guided his honour to the place cap
in hand.

Rid of him, and informed that the house he sought was neighbour on the
farther side