"Quite the contrary. When a man has a property he must be married. I suppose I shall have the McCollop acres some of these days myself." The McCollop acres were said to lie somewhere in Caithness, but no one knew their exact locality. "But a man will naturally put off the evil day as long as he can. I should have thought that you might have allowed yourself to run another five years yet." The flattery did touch Sir Francis, and he began to ask himself whether he had gone too far with Miss Altifiorla. Then came the "Western Telegraph," and he told himself that he had gone too far.
"By G——, she has told everybody in that beastly hole," said he. The "beastly hole" was intended to represent Exeter.
"Of course she has. You didn't suppose but that she would begin to wear her honour and glory as soon as they were wearable."
"She pledged herself not to mention it to a single soul," said Sir Francis. Upon this Captain McCollop merely shrugged his shoulders. "I'm d——d if I put up with it. Look here! All her filthy progenitors put into the newspaper to show how grand she is."
"I shouldn't care so very much about that," said the cautious Captain, who began to perceive that he need not be specially bitter against the lady.
"You're not going to marry her."
"Well, no; that's true."
"Nor am I," said Sir Francis with an air of great decision. "She hasn't got a word of mine in writing to show,—not a word that would go for anything with a jury."
"Hasn't she indeed?"
"Not a word. I have taken precious good care of that. Between you and me, I don't mind acknowledging it. But it had never come to more than that."