'I say,' repeated Martin, with a glimmer of his old obstinacy, 'you
leave the recompense to me. Do you?'
'Since you desire it, my good sir.'
'I always desire it,' said the old man. 'You know I always desire it. I
wish to pay as I go, even when I buy of you. Not that I do not leave a
balance to be settled one day, Pecksniff.'
The architect was too much overcome to speak. He tried to drop a tear
upon his patron's hand, but couldn't find one in his dry distillery.
'May that day be very distant!' was his pious exclamation. 'Ah, sir! If
I could say how deep an interest I have in you and yours! I allude to
our beautiful young friend.'
'True,' he answered. 'True. She need have some one interested in her.
I did her wrong to train her as I did. Orphan though she was, she would
have found some one to protect her whom she might have loved again. When
she was a child, I pleased myself with the thought that in gratifying my
whim of placing her between me and false-hearted knaves, I had done
her a kindness. Now she is a woman, I have no such comfort. She has no
protector but herself.
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