"He wouldn't care two straws about settlements," said Mr. Greenwood.
"He doesn't care about anything he ought to. If I were to write and ask him, would he tell the truth about this marriage?"
"He wouldn't tell the truth about anything," said Mr. Greenwood.
The Marchioness passed this by, though she knew it at the moment to be calumny. But she was not unwilling to hear calumny against Lord Hampstead. "There used to be ways," she said, "in which a marriage of that kind could be put on one side afterwards."
"You must put it on one side before, now-a-days, if you mean to do it at all," said the clergyman.
"But how?—how?"
"If he could be got out of the way."
"How out of the way?"
"Well;—that's what I don't know. Suppose he could be made to go out yachting, and she be married to somebody else when he's at sea!" Lady Kingsbury felt that her friend was but little good at a stratagem. But she felt also that she was not very good herself. She could wish; but wishing in such matters is very vain. She had right on her side. She was quite confident as to that. There could be no doubt but that "gods and men" would desire to see her little Lord Frederic succeed to the Marquisate rather than this infidel Republican. If this wretched Radical could be kept from marrying there would evidently be room for hope, because there was the fact,—proved by the incontestable evidence of Burke's Peerage,—that younger sons did so often succeed. But if another heir were to be born, then, as far as she was aware, Burke's Peerage promised her nothing. "It's a pity he shouldn't break his neck out hunting," said Mr. Greenwood.
"Even that wouldn't be much if he were to be married first," said the Marchioness.