“It cannot concern you much to know, but—”
“True,” interposed Eugene, striking sharply and cutting him short at his mistake, “it does not concern me at all to know. I can say Schoolmaster, which is a most respectable title. You are right, Schoolmaster.”
It was not the dullest part of this goad in its galling of Bradley Headstone, that he had made it himself in a moment of incautious anger. He tried to set his lips so as to prevent their quivering, but they quivered fast.
“ Mr. Eugene Wrayburn,” said the boy, “I want a word with you. I have wanted it so much, that we have looked out your address in the book, and we have been to your office, and we have come from your office here.”
“You have given yourself much trouble, Schoolmaster,” observed Eugene, blowing the feathery ash from his cigar. “I hope it may prove remunerative.”
“And I am glad to speak,” pursued the boy, “in presence of Mr. Lightwood, because it was through Mr. Lightwood that you ever saw my sister.”
For a mere moment, Wrayburn turned his eyes aside from the schoolmaster to note the effect of the last word on Mortimer, who, standing on the opposite side of the fire, as soon as the word was spoken, turned his face towards the fire and looked down into it.
“Similarly, it was through Mr. Lightwood that you ever saw her again, for you were with him on the night when my father was found, and so I found you with her on the next day. Since then, you have seen my sister often. You have seen my sister oftener and oftener. And I want to know why?”