'How do _you_ do, Miss?' he said, extending his hand, and greeting me after
his ungallant fashion, as if it were an afterthought.
'I think I may as well take a chair, sir,' said Doctor Bryerly, sitting
down serenely, near the table, and crossing his ungainly legs.
My uncle bowed.
'You understand the nature of the business, sir. Do you wish Miss Ruthyn to
remain?' asked Doctor Bryerly.
'I _sent_ for her, sir,' replied my uncle, in a very gentle and sarcastic
tone, a smile on his thin lips, and his strangely-contorted eyebrows raised
for a moment contemptuously. 'This gentleman, my dear Maud, thinks proper
to insinuate that I am robbing you. It surprises me a little, and, no
doubt, you--I've nothing to conceal, and wished you to be present while
he favours me more particularly with his views. I'm right, I think, in
describing it as _robbery_, sir?'
'Why,' said Doctor Bryerly thoughtfully, for he was treating the matter
as one of right, and not of feeling, 'it would be, certainly, taking that
which does not belong to you, and converting it to your own use; but, at
the worst, it would more resemble _thieving_, I think, than robbery.
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