"His former wife!" said Mrs. Baker.
"Haven't you heard of that? Why, he's had two already."
"Two wives already! Oh now, Master Augustus, what an old fool I am ever to believe a word that comes out of your mouth." Then having uttered her blessing, and having had her hand cordially grasped by this new scion of the Staveley family, the old woman left the young men to themselves, and went to her bed.
"Now that it is done—," said Felix.
"You wish it were undone."
"No, by heaven! I think I may venture to say that it will never come to me to wish that. But now that it is done, I am astonished at my own impudence almost as much as at my success. Why should your father have welcomed me to his house as his son-in-law, seeing how poor are my prospects?"
"Just for that reason; and because he is so different from other men. I have no doubt that he is proud of Madeline for having liked a man with an ugly face and no money."
"If I had been beautiful like you, I shouldn't have had a chance with him."
"Not if you'd been weighted with money also. Now, as for myself, I confess I'm not nearly so magnanimous as my father, and, for Mad's sake, I do hope you will get rid of your vagaries. An income, I know, is a very commonplace sort of thing; but when a man has a family there are comforts attached to it."
"I am at any rate willing to work," said Graham somewhat moodily.