"He's the Deputy Bishop of the diocese."
"But why have the Bishop himself unless he happen to be a friend? Does your daughter like her marriage?"
"I hope so. She does not complain."
"He's an awful ass,—and always was. I remember when you used always to finish up your books by making him bet as you pleased."
"He always won."
"And now you've made him marry your daughter. Perhaps he has
won there. I like her. If my wife would die and he would die, we might get up another match and cut out Lord George after all." This speculation was too deep even for Mr. De Baron, who laughed and shuffled himself about, and got out of the room.
"Wouldn't you have liked to be a marchioness," he said, some hours afterwards, to Mrs. Houghton. She was in the habit of sitting by him and talking to him late in the evening, while he was sipping his curaçoa and soda water, and had become accustomed to hear odd things from him. He liked her because he could say what he pleased to her, and she would laugh and listen, and show no offence. But this last question was very odd. Of course she thought that it referred to the old overtures made to her by Lord George; but in that case, had she married Lord George, she could only have been made a marchioness by his own death,—by that and by the death of the little Popenjoy of whom she had heard so much.
"If it had come in my way fairly," she said with an arch smile.
"I don't mean that you should have murdered anybody. Suppose you had married me?"