Before dinner the matter was settled at the Grange. The stern old man
bade his visitor sit down, and then explained to him at full length that
which it was proposed to do. So much money the Squire had himself put
by; so much more Mr. Bolton himself would advance; the value had been
properly computed; and, should the arrangement be completed, he, John
Caldigate, would sell his inheritance at its proper price. Over and over
again the young man endeavoured to interrupt the speaker, but was told
to postpone his words till the other should have done. Such
interruptions came from the too evident fact that Mr. Bolton thoroughly
despised his guest. Caldigate, though he had been very foolish, though
he had loved to slaughter rats and rabbits, and to romp with the girls
at Babington, was by no means a fool. He was possessed of good natural
abilities, of great activity, and of a high spirit. His appreciation was
quicker than that of the old banker, who, as he soon saw, had altogether
failed to understand him. In every word that the banker spoke, it was
evident that he thought that these thousands would be squandered
instantly. The banker spoke as though this terrible severance was to be
made because the natural heir had shown himself to be irrevocably bad.
What could be expected from a youth who was deep in the books of a Davis
before he had left his college? 'I do not recommend this,' he said at
last. 'I have never recommended it. The disruption is so great as to be
awful. But when your father has asked what better step he could take, I
have been unable to advise him.' It was as though the old man were
telling the young one that he was too bad for hope, and that, therefore,
he must be consigned for ever to perdition.

Caldigate, conscious of the mistake which the banker was making, full of
hope as to himself, intending to acknowledge the follies of which he had
been guilty, and, at the same time, not to promise,--for he would not
condescend so far,--but to profess that they were things of the past,