“Wait for money from England.”
“But they will think we are all sharpers,” she said; “and upon my word I do not wonder at it from the way in which that woman goes on.” She then leaned forward, resting her elbow on the table and her face on her hand, and told me a long history of all their family discomforts. Her papa was a very good sort of man, only he had been made a fool of by that intriguing woman, who had been left without a sixpence with which to bless herself. And now they had nothing but quarrels and misery. Papa did not always got the worst of it;—papa could rouse himself sometimes; only now he was beaten down and cowed by the loss of his money. This whispering confidence was very nice in its way, seeing that Sophonisba was a pretty girl; but the whole matter seemed to be full of suspicion.
“If they did not want to take you in in one way, they did in another,” said the present Mrs. Robinson, when I told the story to her at Innspruck. I beg that it may be understood that at the time of my meeting the Greenes I was not engaged to the present Mrs. Robinson, and was open to make any matrimonial engagement that might have been pleasing to me.
On the next morning, after breakfast, we held a council of war. I had been informed that Mr. Greene had made a fortune, and was justified in presuming him to be a rich man. It seemed to me, therefore, that his course was easy. Let him wait at Bellaggio for more money, and when he returned home, let him buy Mrs. Greene more jewels. A poor man always presumes that a rich man is indifferent about his money. But in truth a rich man never is indifferent about his money, and poor Greene looked very blank at my proposition.
“Do you mean to say that it’s gone for ever?” he asked.
“I’ll not leave the country without knowing more about it,” said Mrs. Greene.
“It certainly is very odd,” said Sophonisba. Even Sophonisba seemed to think that I was too off-hand.
“It will be a month before I can get money, and my bill here will be something tremendous,” said Greene.
“I wouldn’t pay them a farthing till I got my box,” said Mrs. Greene.
“That’s nonsense,” said Sophonisba. And so it was. “Hold your tongue, Miss!” said the step-mother.