Jasper Babb looked round startled at the audacity and rudeness of the surgeon. Mr. Jordan was not offended; he seemed indeed flattered. He was very proud of Eve. ‘You are right. My eldest daughter has almost nothing in common with her younger sister—only a half-sister.’ ‘Really,’ said Coyshe, ‘it makes me shiver for the future of that fairy being. I take it for granted she will be yoked to some county booby of a squire, a Bob Acres. Good Lord! what a prospect! A jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, as Solomon says.’ ‘Eve shall never marry one unworthy of her,’ said Ignatius Jordan vehemently. She will be under no constraint. She will be able to afford to shape her future according to her fancy. She will be comfortably off.’ ‘Comfortably off fifty years ago means pinched now, and pinched now means screwed flat fifty years hence. Everything is becoming costly. Living is a luxury only for the well-to-do. The rest merely exist under sufferance.’ ‘Miss Eve will not be pinched,’ answered Mr. Jordan, unconscious that he was being drawn out by the surgeon. ‘Seventeen years ago I lent fifteen hundred pounds, which is to be returned to me on Midsummer Day. To that I can add about five hundred; I have saved something since—not much, for somehow the estate has not answered as it did of old.’ ‘You have two daughters.’ ‘Oh, yes, there is Barbara,’ said Jordan in a tone of indifference. ‘Of course she will have something, but then—she can always manage for herself—with the other it is different.’ ‘Are you ill?’ asked Coyshe, suddenly, observing that Jasper had turned very pale, and dark under the eyes. ‘Is the air too strong for you?’ ‘No, let me remain here. The sun does me good.’ Mr. Jordan was rather glad of this opportunity of publishing the fortune he was going to give his younger daughter. He wished it to be known in the neighbourhood, that Eve might be esteemed and sought by suitable young men. He often said to himself that he could die content were Eve in a position where she would be happy and admired. ‘When did Miss Eve’s mother die?’ asked Coyshe abruptly. Mr. Jordan started. ‘Did I say she was dead? Did I mention her?’ Coyshe mused, put his hand through his hair and ruffled it up; then folded his arms and threw out his legs. ‘Now tell me, squire, are you sure of your money?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘That money you say you lent seventeen years ago. What are your securities?’ ‘The best. The word of an honourable man.’ ‘The word!’ Mr. Coyshe whistled. ‘Words! What are words?’ ‘He offered me a mortgage, but it never came,’ said Mr. Jordan. ‘Indeed, I never applied for it. I had his word.’ ‘If you see the shine of that money again, you are lucky.’ Then looking at Jasper: ‘My patient is upset again—I thought the air was too strong for him. He must be carried in. He is going into a fit.’ Jasper was leaning back against the wall, with distended eyes, and hands and teeth clenched as with a spasm.