down for an evasion, and a turn of my trade. But any answer, I suppose,
must serve my turn."

"And wherefore should not bare curiosity," said Tressilian, "be a
sufficient reason for my taking this walk with you?"

"Oh, content yourself, sir," replied Lambourne; "you cannot put
the change on me so easy as you think, for I have lived among the
quick-stirring spirits of the age too long to swallow chaff for grain.
You are a gentleman of birth and breeding--your bearing makes it good;
of civil habits and fair reputation--your manners declare it, and
my uncle avouches it; and yet you associate yourself with a sort of
scant-of-grace, as men call me, and, knowing me to be such, you make
yourself my companion in a visit to a man whom you are a stranger
to--and all out of mere curiosity, forsooth! The excuse, if curiously
balanced, would be found to want some scruples of just weight, or so."

"If your suspicions were just," said Tressilian, "you have shown no
confidence in me to invite or deserve mine."

"Oh, if that be all," said Lambourne, "my motives lie above water. While
this gold of mine lasts"--taking out his purse, chucking it into the
air, and catching it as it fell--"I will make it buy pleasure; and
when it is out I must have more. Now, if this mysterious Lady of the
Manor--this fair Lindabrides of Tony Fire-the-Fagot--be so admirable a
piece as men say, why, there is a chance that she may aid me to melt
my nobles into greats; and, again, if Anthony be so wealthy a chuff
as report speaks him, he may prove the philosopher's stone to me, and
convert my greats into fair rose-nobles again."