But it IS my place to tell you
plainly, father, that I, for one, will have nothing at all to do
with the fruits of your deception. I was no party to the fraud; I
will be no party either to its results or its clearing up. I, too,
have to think, as you say, of my mother. For her sake, I won't
urge you to break her heart at once by disinheriting her son, now
and here, too openly. You can make what arrangements you like with
these blood-sucking Warings. You can do as you will in providing
them with hush-money. Let them take their black-mail! You've handed
them over half the sum you got for Dowlands already, I suppose.
You can buy them off for awhile by handing them over the remainder.
Twelve thousand will do. Leeches as they are, that will surely
content them, at least for the present."
Colonel Kelmscott raised one hand and tried hard to interrupt him;
but Granville would not be interrupted.
"No, no," he went on sternly, shaking his head and frowning. "I'll
have my say for once, and then for ever keep silence. This is the
first and last time as long as we both live I will speak with you
on the subject. So we may as well understand one another, once and
for ever. For my mother's sake, as I said, there need be just at
present no open disclosure.
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