Of course there arose the question where they should live. But he was ready with an immediate answer to this question. He had been to look at a flat,—a set of rooms,—in the Belgrave Mansions, in Pimlico, or Belgravia you ought more probably to call it. He proposed to take them furnished till they could look about at their leisure and get a house that should suit them. Would she like a flat? She would have liked a cellar with him, and so she told him. Then they went to look at the flat, and old Mr. Wharton condescended to go with them. Though his heart was not in the business, still he thought that he was bound to look after his daughter's comfort. "They are very handsome rooms," said Mr. Wharton, looking round upon the rather gorgeous furniture.
"Oh, Ferdinand, are they not too grand?" said Emily.
"Perhaps they are a little more than we quite want just at present," he said. "But I'll tell you, sir, just how it has happened. A man I know wanted to let them for one year, just as they are, and offered them to me for £450,—if I could pay the money in advance, at the moment. And so I paid it."
"You have taken them, then?" said Mr. Wharton.
"Is it all settled?" said Emily, almost with disappointment.
"I have paid the money, and I have so far taken them. But it is by no means settled. You have only to say you don't like them, and you shall never be asked to put your foot in them again."
"But I do like them," she whispered to him.
"The truth is, sir, that there is not the slightest difficulty in parting with them. So that when the chance came in my way I thought it best to secure the thing. It had all to be done, so to say, in an hour. My friend,—as far as he was a friend, for I don't know much about him,—wanted the money and wanted to be off. So here they are, and Emily can do as she likes." Of course the rooms were regarded from that moment as the home for the next twelve months of Mr. and Mrs. Ferdinand Lopez.
And then they were married. The marriage was by no means a gay affair, the chief management of it falling into the hands of Mrs. Dick Roby. Mrs. Dick indeed provided not only the breakfast,—or saw rather that it was provided, for of course Mr. Wharton paid the bill,—but the four bridesmaids also, and all the company. They were married in the church in Vere Street, then went back to the house in Manchester Square, and within a couple of hours were on their road to Dover. Through it all not a word was said about money. At the last moment,—when he was free from fear as to any questions about his own affairs,—Lopez had hoped that the old man would say something. "You will find so many thousand pounds at your bankers';"—or, "You may look to me for so many hundreds a year." But there was not a word. The girl had come to him without the assurance of a single shilling. In his great endeavour to get her he had been successful. As he thought of this in the carriage, he pressed his arm close round her waist. If the worst were to come to the worst, he would fight the world for her. But if this old man should be stubborn, close-fisted, and absolutely resolved to bestow all his money upon his son because of this marriage,—ah!—how should he be able to bear such a wrong as that?
Half-a-dozen times during that journey to Dover he resolved to think nothing further about it, at any rate for a fortnight; and yet, before he reached Dover, he had said a word to her. "I wonder what your father means to do about money? He never told you?"