"I'd have done anything for her,—anything! She might have had what settlements she pleased. I told Ned that he must go, if she made a point of it. I'd have gone abroad, or lived just anywhere. I'd come to that, that I didn't mind the hunting a bit."
"I'm sorry for you,—I am indeed."
"It cuts a fellow all to pieces so! And yet what is it all about? A slip of a girl that isn't anything so very much out of the way after all. Lady Chiltern, I shouldn't care if the horse kicked the trap all to pieces going back to Spoon Hall, and me with it."
"You'll get over it, Mr. Spooner."
"Get over it! I suppose I shall; but I shall never be as I was. I've been always thinking of the day when there must be a lady at Spoon Hall, and putting it off, you know. There'll never be a lady there now;—never. You don't think there's any chance at all?"
"I'm sure there is none."
"I'd give half I've got in all the world," said the wretched man, "just to get it out of my head. I know what it will come to." Though he paused, Lady Chiltern could ask no question respecting Mr. Spooner's future prospects. "It'll be two bottles of champagne at dinner, and two bottles of claret afterwards, every day. I only hope she'll know that she did it. Good-bye, Lady Chiltern. I thought that perhaps you'd have helped me."
"I cannot help you."
"Good-bye." So he went down to his trap, and drove himself violently home,—without, however, achieving the ruin which he desired. Let us hope that as time cures his wound that threat as to increased consumption of wine may fall to the ground unfulfilled.
In the meantime Gerard Maule had arrived at Matching Priory.