“May I hope for your consent, sir?” he asked quickly.
“Well, yes, you may, if you can win her. You are welcome, as far as I am concerned. Yes!” holding out his rather short, stubby hand, with one big diamond blazing on his little finger. “It’s time she was settled, and I’m afraid she will never be what she was, as regards her looks. I did hanker after a ready-made title, but one can’t have everything! I like you. You are tolerant of an old man’s whims; you don’t laugh at me under my own roof, and think I don’t see it like some young cubs; you are a gentleman, and I give you Maddie and welcome, now that I have talked it over; but the hitch, you will find, will be the girl herself. She is, as you may see, utterly broken down and altered, and in no mind to listen to a love-tale; but, well or ill, I must tell you honestly that I would not give much for your chance.”
“What would you say, sir,” said Laurence, now becoming a shade paler, “if I were to tell you that I had won her already?”
Mr. West looked at him sharply.
“The deuce you have! And when?”
“More than three years ago.”
“What! before I came home? when she was at Harpers’? Were you the half-starved fellow that I heard was hanging about? Oh, never!”
“I don’t think I was half-starved, but I was most desperately in love with her.”
“Oh, so it’s an old affair?”
“Yes, an old affair, as you say, Mr. West. And you have given me Madeline if I can win her, have you not?—that is a promise?”