"You would if Miss Dimsdale would listen to you," snarled Vernon. "If I asked her to be my wife she would accept at once," retorted Maunders. "No, she wouldn't. Your aunt told me that she had lost all love for you since the death of her father." Maunders' face grew black. "I wish the old lady would keep her ideas to herself," he said angrily, "for it is an idea and nothing more. Naturally, as her father came by his death in so terrible a manner, Ida is grieved and can't think eternally of me. All the same, she loves me." "I doubt that." "On what grounds?" "On what Mrs. Bedge said." "Pooh! Pooh! Pooh! What does my aunt know about it?" said Maunders lightly and with superb insolence. "She's a dear old thing, but several centuries behind the age. Ida is mine if I choose to have her, and I would have her if my silly heart did not stand in the way." Vernon jumped up in a royal rage. "I forbid you to make false love to Miss Corsoon. I love her and she loves me, and it is only your infernally magnetic personality that draws her heart away from me. If you meant well by her, and I thought she would be happy, I would withdraw; but you only mean to marry her for her money, which she may never get." "I love her, I tell you; I love her," said Maunders as violently as Vernon had spoken, "and money or no money I shall marry her if I choose. You have no chance. Lady Corsoon hates you." "I don't believe it. She shows signs of yielding, and has asked me to go to tea at her house this afternoon. If she hated me she would not ask me in so friendly a way." An almost imperceptible smile passed over the full lips of Maunders, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Go to her house by all means and hear what she has to say," he sneered. "I'll risk your visit." Vernon was baffled by all this fencing and evasion. The man would neither say "yea" nor "nay," and it was impossible to tell what he intended to do. "If you will leave the field clear for me with Miss Corsoon I will take you into partnership," he said at last, entreatingly. "I am not sure if I wish to be taken in," retorted Maunders contemptuously; "it is not a respectable business." "You are a liar! My business is perfectly respectable, and I earn my money honestly." Vernon caught up his hat and looked round the elegant room. "I doubt if you can say the same." "What do you mean by that?" demanded Maunders furiously. "I mean that you haven't a sixpence, that your aunt can't allow you much, and that you are living far beyond your means. Where do you get the money?" "That's my business," said Maunders coolly, "and my aunt is wealthy." "So wealthy that she desires the post of a paid companion to Miss Dimsdale," sneered Vernon, making for the door. "She told me so herself, although I'm bound to say that she desires to further your interests by inducing Miss Dimsdale to love you again." "I can manage all that for myself," said Maunders decisively; "my aunt has no business to interfere with my affairs."