“But isn’t she?” asked Jennie. “You have always said she was.”
“A man and his wife are one, are they not?” asked Clarence.
“Why, you goose, of course they are.”
“Well, then, Jennie, if I come into possession of a secret, no matter how, and I give my solemn promise that I will not tell, am I breaking that promise if I tell my wife?”
“Why, of course not, Clarence. You have no right to have any secrets from your wife. How can a man love, honour, and obey his wife if he keeps a secret all to himself? Now, Clarence, dear, what is the secret?”
“I will whisper it to you, Jennie. Bertha isn’t poor at all; she is worth forty thousand pounds in her own right, but my father is her guardian and, according to her father’s will, the governor has a right to hold on to the property until she marries, and, of course, he does not want her to marry any one—except me. Of course, I don’t want her, for good and sufficient reasons which are now before me.”
“Oh, I see,” cried Jennie. “Jack De Vinne is going to Paris, and your father thinks that this letter business is only a scheme to enable Bertha to go to Paris and meet Jack.”
“You have hit it exactly, Jennie. What heads you women have!”
“Does Bertha know Jack is there?”
“Of course she doesn’t. She wants to go because she is tired of Buckholme. She has been cooped up there all her life. Now she wants to see the rest of the world.”