"I believe there has always been a perfect confidence between you and him?"
"Certainly,—as to all our ways of living. But he never said a word to me about money in his life."
"And yet, my darling, money is most important."
"Of course it is. I know that, Ferdinand."
"Would you mind asking?" She did not answer him at once, but sat thinking. And he also paused before he went on with his lesson. But, in order that the lesson should be efficacious, it would be as well that he should tell her as much as he could even at this first lecture. "To tell you the truth, this is quite essential to me at present,—very much more than I had thought it would be when we fixed the day for our marriage." Her mind within her recoiled at this, though she was very careful that he should not feel any such motion in her body. "My business is precarious."
"What is your business, Ferdinand?" Poor girl! That she should have been allowed to marry a man, and then have to ask such a question!
"It is generally commercial. I buy and sell on speculation. The world, which is shy of new words, has not yet given it a name. I am a good deal at present in the South American trade." She listened, but received no glimmering of an idea from his words. "When we were engaged everything was as bright as roses with me."
"Why did you not tell me this before,—so that we might have been more prudent?"
"Such prudence would have been horrid to me. But the fact is that I should not now have spoken to you at all, but that since we left England I have had letters from a sort of partner of mine. In our business things will go astray sometimes. It would be of great service to me if I could learn what are your father's intentions."
"You want him to give you some money at once."