Stranica 82 [82]
62 LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.
a ec = mmm zt a ötött — — HENK as i ri —— sás et = = a =—— = x =| _ —_— —
————— szt sszár—n 0 ——./!§h6
“All done for effect!” snapped his noble lordship. ‘She
wants to wheedle me into seeing her. She thinks I shall admire
her spirit. I don’t admire it! It’s only American independence!
[ wont have her living like a beggar at my park gates. As
she’s the boy’s mother, she has a position. to keep up, and she
shall keep it up. She shall have the money, whether she likes it
or not!”
‘She wont spend it,” said Mr. Havisham.
‘T don’t care whether she spends it or not!” blustered my lord.
«She shall have it sent to her. She sha’n’t tell people that she has —
to live like a pauper because | have done nothing for her! She
wants to give the boy a bad opinion of me! I suppose she has
poisoned his mind against me already!”
“No,” said Mr. Havisham. ‘I have another message, which
will prove to you that she has not done that.”
‘“T don’t want to hear it!” panted the Earl, out of breath with
anger and excitement and gout.
But Mr. Havisham delivered it.
“She asks you not to let Lord Fauntleroy hear anything which
would lead him to understand that you separate him from her be¬
cause of your prejudice against her. He is very fond of her, and
she is convinced that it would cause a barrier to exist between you.
She says he would not comprehend it, and it might make him fear
you in some measure, or at least cause him to feel less affection for
you. She has told him that he is too young to understand the rea¬
son, but shall hear it when he is older. She wishes that there should
be no shadow on your first meeting.”
The Earl sank back into his chair. His deep-set fierce old eyes
gleamed under his beetling brows.
‘Come, now!” he said, still breathlessly. “Come, now! You
don’t mean the mother has nt told him?”