"Why, Herbert, it is not always practicable for the son even of a man of property to marry so early in life as this. She has nothing, you know."
"No," said the young man, proudly; "I never thought of looking for money."
"But in your position it is so essential if a young man wishes to marry."
Herbert had always regarded his father as the most liberal man breathing,—as open-hearted and open-handed almost to a fault. To him, his only son, he had ever been so, refusing him nothing, and latterly allowing him to do almost as he would with the management of the estate. He could not understand that this liberality should be turned to parsimony on such an occasion as that of his son's marriage.
"You think then, sir, that I ought not to marry Lady Clara?" said Herbert very bitterly.
"I like her excessively," said Sir Thomas. "I think she is a sweet girl, a very sweet girl, all that I or your mother could desire to see in your wife; but—"
"But she is not rich."
"Do not speak to me in that tone, my boy," said Sir Thomas, with an expression that would have moved his enemy to pity, let alone his son. His son did pity him, and ceased to wear the angry expression of face which had so wounded his father.
"But, father, I do not understand you," he said. "Is there any real objection why I should not marry? I am more than twenty-two, and you, I think, married earlier than that."
In answer to this Sir Thomas only sighed meekly and piteously.