“I am astonished you should not have washed your hands of him!”
“To a great extent I did, but as his interpretation of our relationship included a belief that he was at liberty not only to pledge my credit, but to attach my signature to various bills, it was a trifle difficult to ignore him.”
She was very much shocked. “And his paternal relatives blame you! Upon my word, it is too bad!”
“Yes, it becomes a little wearisome,” he acknowledged. “I blame myself for having lent a certain amount of color to their suspicions by once taking up a mortgage on part of the unencumbered land.
I really meant it for the best, but I should have known better than to have done it. Were he to die now, and his property to come into my hands, it would be freely said in certain quarters that I had not only encouraged him to commit all the excesses that led to his end, but had, by some unspecified means, prevented him from marrying.”
“I own it is very disagreeable for you,” she said, “but I am persuaded your own family, your friends, would not believe such slander!”
“By no means.”
“You should not allow yourself to regard it.”
“No, perhaps I should not, if I had only myself to consider. But such whisperings can be extremely mischievous. My brother John, for instance, might find them embarrassing, and I have no desire to throw any rub, however unwitting, in his way. And Nicky—no, Nicky would never bear to hear me slandered!” He broke off, as though recollecting that he was addressing a stranger, and said abruptly, “The simplest way to put a stop to all this nonsense is to provide my cousin with a wife, and that is what I am determined to do.”