"She is older now, and will be able to manage George," said another.
"Manage him! If anybody can manage to keep him out of debt, or from drink either, I'll eat him."
"But he must be Sir George when old Sir Harry dies," said he who was defending the prudence of the marriage.
"Yes, and won't have a penny. Will it help her to be able to put Lady Hotspur on the bills? Not in the least. And the women can't forgive her and visit her. She has not been good enough for that. A grand old family has been disgraced, and a good actress destroyed. That's my idea of this marriage."
"I thought Georgy was going to marry his cousin—that awfully proud minx," said one young fellow.
"When it came to the scratch, she would not have him," said another. "But there had been promises, and so, to make it all square, Sir Harry paid his debts."
"I don't believe a bit about his debts being paid," said the middle-aged gentleman who was fond of going to the theatre.
Yes, George Hotspur was married: and, as far as any love went with him, had married the woman he liked best. Though the actress was worlds too good for him, there was not about her that air of cleanliness and almost severe purity which had so distressed him while he had been forced to move in the atmosphere of his cousin. After the copying of the letter and the settlement of the bills, Mrs. Morton had found no difficulty in arranging matters as she pleased. She had known the man perhaps better than any one else had known him; and yet she thought it best to marry him. We must not inquire into her motives, though we may pity her fate.
She did not intend, however, to yield herself as an easy prey to his selfishness. She had also her ideas of reforming him, and ideas which, as they were much less grand, might possibly be more serviceable than those which for a while had filled the mind and heart of Emily Hotspur. "George," she said, one day to him, "what do you mean to do?" This was before the marriage was fixed;—when nothing more was fixed than that idea of marriage which had long existed between them.
"Of course we shall be spliced now," said he.