"I won't have another word," said Lady George decisively. "You two are just annoying each other. Dick, my dear, I think it's just sweet of you to put all your faith in that seeing of me. I adore you for it. It eases all my spiritual aches and pains. Toby, you irritating creature, can't you see how lovely it is of him? If he were all wrong about having me come down here, I shouldn't care. He has done it because he believes in his heart of hearts that his people have only got to set eyes on me and all their objections will vanish into thin air."
"I don't say that quite—I don't know," said Dick.
"Well, you needn't go and spoil it," said Miss Dexter. "I was just going to say that it did make up for a good deal."
"Look here, Miss Dexter," said Dick. "If I were to go and tell my father straight off that I am going to marry Virginia he would be all over bristles at once. All the things that don't matter a hang beside what she is, and what every one can see she is who knows her, would be brought up, and he'd put himself into a frantic state about it. He wouldn't let me bring her to Kencote; he'd fight blindly with every weapon he could use. I'm heir to a fine property, and I'm as well off as I need be, even while my father is alive, as long as I don't set myself against all his dislikes and prejudices. If I do, he can make me a poor man, and he'd do it. He'd do anything by which he thought he could get his way. I shouldn't even be able to marry, unless I lived on my wife's money, which I won't do."
"No, you're too proud for that," said Miss Dexter.
"Put it how you like. I won't do it. I'll take all a wife can give me except money. That I'll give. If there were no other way, I'd break down his opposition. I know how to treat him, and I could do it; but it would take time; I should cut myself off from Kencote until I had brought him under, and Virginia's name would be bandied about here, in the place where we are going to live all our lives, in a way that would affect us always, and in a way I won't subject her to. He'd do that, although he might be sorry for having done it afterwards, and I don't think I should be able to put up with it. We might quarrel in such a way that we shouldn't be able to come together again, and the harm would be done. As I say, if there were no other way I would run the risk. But there is another way, and I'm taking it. You asked me a foolish question just now—if I was ashamed of Virginia. It is because I am so far from being ashamed of her—because I'm so proud of her—that I asked her to come down here, where he can get to know her before he has any idea that I'm going to marry her. She can make her way, and make him forget all the rest. Now, what have you got against that? Let's have it plainly."
"Dear Dick!" said Virginia softly. "I have had many compliments paid me, but that is the best of all. Answer him, Toby, and don't keep up this tiresome irritation any longer. It spoils everything."
"Well, I'll give in," said Miss Dexter. "But in my inmost soul I'm against all this policy, and if your father isn't quite blind, Captain Dick, he will see through it, and you will be worse off than before."
"My father can't see through anything," said Dick. "Besides, there's nothing to see through. I shouldn't mind telling him—in fact, I shall tell him—that it was I who advised Virginia to come down here. He knows I have heaps of friends all over the place that he doesn't know of. Virginia is one of them, for the present."
"I hope everything will turn out well," said Miss Dexter after a slight pause. "I won't say I think you're right, but I'll say you may be, and I hope you are. And I won't worry you with any more doubts."