"He should not have gone to his lawyer. I do think he was wrong there."
"But you settled it with him;—you, my mother;—a price at which he should buy himself off! Would he have offered me money if he did not know that he had bound himself to me?"
"Nothing on earth would make him marry you. I would not for a moment have allowed him to allude to money if that had not been quite certain."
"Who proposed the money first?"
Lady Augustus considered a moment before she answered. "Upon my word, my dear, I can't say. He wrote the figures on a bit of paper; that was the way." Then she produced the scrap. "He wrote the figures first,—and then I altered them, just as you see. The proposition came first from him, of course."
"And you did not spit at him!" said Arabella as she tore the scrap into fragments.
"Arabella," said the mother, "it is clear that you do not look into the future. How do you mean to live? You are getting old."
"Old!"
"Yes, my love,—old. Of course I am willing to do everything for you, as I always have done,—for so many years, but there isn't a man in London who does not know how long you have been about it."
"Hold your tongue, mamma," said Arabella jumping up.