"Confessed, did I? Well, if you will have it so. But between me and this child there is a bond of love--a strong point. And even if the law did support you, I have nine other strong points in my favour--all expressed in one small word." "Will it be troubling you too much," asked the gentleman, with irritating insolence, "to ask you to name that word?" "Not at all. As a lawyer--as I understand from this lady's remarks you are--you will appreciate its worth. Possession." The discordant chord between these men had been struck very effectually. "You are acquainted with the law," observed the gentleman, implying what it was impossible to misunderstand--to wit, that Seth Dumbrick was acquainted with the law in a way not creditable to himself. "I know nothing of it from experience." "Yet you know something of the machinery." "From observation and general reading." "Indeed! You set up for a scholar!" "I do not." "Would possession hold good," inquired the lady, with careless condescension, "against a rightful owner?" "It has," replied Seth, not unwilling to use the arrow placed in his hands, "in many instances--thanks to the law." The lady looked at the gentleman for information. "Such things have been," he said, "but not where flesh and blood are concerned." "And here it _is_ concerned," she exclaimed, with vivacity. "Nonsense. What whim of yours shall I have to fight against next?" "Of course, when I say I would like to buy the child, I am aware I am talking nonsense; but perhaps it is not in your legal mind to make allowances. I am singularly curious to learn what I can of the pretty creature's history--if she has one." "The commonest of us has a history worth reading--but not, I doubt, until the actor begins to play a conscious part in the drama of life." "Now you are speaking in a way I like. Let me, then, have my way, and ask the gipsy to tell the child's fortune." "Come," he said to the gipsy, "earn your money. We have already lingered too long." Seth Dumbrick, who had been listening with impatience to this dialogue, stepped between the gipsy and the Duchess. "We have had enough fooling," he said sternly. "Let the woman earn her money in some other way than this." He would have retired with the children at once, had not the gentleman stepped quickly before him, barring his progress. "You are disposed to be insolent," he said, with a slight quivering of the lips. "Do you not know how to pay respect to a lady?" "I know what is due to myself," replied Seth quietly. "I simply wish not to be molested." "You are a stranger about here?" "I am here by chance; I have no knowledge of the place." "Nor of me?" "Nor of you--and," he added, his temper mastering his judgment, "I wish to have none. You are a gentleman, and I----" "Am not." "You have answered for me. I see no reason to repine at the difference in our positions."