Margot's face grew eager, and her eyes flamed.
"What I want and insist on," she said, "is that I must have my rights. After all I've hoped for and expected, I won't be thrown over, and go back to the old, dull life of turning and twisting every shilling. If you'll settle thirty thousand pounds on me, you are free, so far as I care. I wouldn't marry a man who hated me, when there's one who adores me as if I were a saint—and I like him better than ever I did you—a lot better. I realize that more than I did before."
The suggestion of Margot Lorenzi as a saint might have made a looker-on smile, but Victoria and Stephen passed it by, scarcely hearing.
"If I give you thirty thousand pounds, it will leave me a poor man," he said.
"Oh, do give her the money and be a poor man," Victoria implored. "I shall be so happy if we are poor—a thousand times happier than she could be with millions."
Stephen caught the hand that half unconsciously the girl held out to him, and pressed it hard. "If you will go back to your hotel now," he said to Margot, in a quiet voice, "I will call on you there almost at once, and we can settle our business affairs. I promise that you shall be satisfied."
Margot looked at them both for a few seconds, without speaking. "I'll go, and send a telegram to Montreal which will make somebody there happier than any other man in Canada," she answered. "And I'll expect you in an hour."
When she had gone, they forgot her.
"Do you really mean, when you say we—we shall be happy poor, that you'll marry me in spite of all?" Stephen asked.
"Oh, yes, if you want me still," Victoria said.