"Don't do that. You see, Mr. Dean, belonging to the church militant as you do, you are so heroically pugnacious! You must like fighting very much." "When I have anything which I conceive it to be my duty to fight for, I think I do." "Things are generally best got without fighting. You want to make your grandson Marquis of Brotherton." "I want to ensure to my grandson anything that may be honestly and truly his own." "You must first catch a grandson." It was on his lips to say that certainly no heir should be caught on his side of the family after the fashion that had been practised by his lordship in catching the present pseudo-Popenjoy; but he was restrained by a feeling of delicacy in regard to his own daughter. "My lord," he said, "I am not here to discuss any such contingency." "But you don't scruple to discuss my contingency, and that in the most public manner. It has suited me, or at any rate it has been my chance, to marry a foreigner. Because you don't understand Italian fashions you don't scruple to say that she is not my wife." "I have never said so." "And to declare that my son is not my son." "I have never said that." "And to set a dozen attorneys to work to prove that my heir is a bastard." "We heard of your marriage, my lord, as having been fixed for a certain date,--a date long subsequent to that of the birth of your son. What were we to think?" "As if that hadn't been explained to you, and to all the world, a dozen times over. Did you never hear of a second marriage being solemnized in England to satisfy certain scruples? You have sent out and made your inquiries, and what have they come to? I know all about it." "As far as I am concerned you are quite welcome to know everything." "I dare say;--even though I should be stung to death by the knowledge. Of course I understand. You think that I have no feeling at all." "Not much as to duty to your family, certainly," said the Dean, stoutly. "Exactly. Because I stand a little in the way of your new ambition, I am the Devil himself. And yet you and those who have abetted you think it odd that I haven't received you with open arms. My boy is as much to me as ever was your daughter to you." "Perhaps so, my lord. The question is not whether he is beloved, but whether he is Lord Popenjoy." "He is Lord Popenjoy. He is a poor weakling, and I doubt whether he may enjoy the triumph long, but he is Lord Popenjoy. You must know it yourself, Dean." "I know nothing of the kind," said the Dean, furiously. "Then you must be a very self-willed man. When this began George was joined with you in the unnatural inquiry. He at any rate has been convinced." "It may be he has submitted himself to his brother's influence."