The marquis waved his hand.
“Don’t spoil it by an apology,” he said, quietly. “You struck home and should be satisfied. My marriage was almost as great a mistake as yours will be. Almost, not quite. It ruined my life; if by a little trouble I could have saved you from a like experience, I should have been glad to have done so; but I am not prepared to take much trouble. We will, therefore, if you please, consider that you have made up your mind to marry this girl from the gutter—don’t look so fierce; a girl who is of no family is from the gutter—the pavement!—that you have made up your mind to become the laughing-stock of all your friends, old and young; to chain yourself to a woman who will, while she lives, be pointed and stared at as ‘the actress,’ that you are contented to leave the society to which your birth and position entitle you, and sink into grim solitude or the companionship of people of her class. We will take all this for granted. And now, what do you expect me to do, if I may ask?”
“To request me to leave this house, to discontinue my allowance, and to cut me from henceforth,” said Lord Neville, promptly but calmly.
The marquis smiled.
“Y—es,” he said, nodding, “that is my duty forcibly and concisely. This is what I ought to do; but all my life I have never done what I ought to have done, and have always done what I ought not. You are welcome to remain at the Towers as long as you please.”
Lord Neville looked at him with faint surprise, and the marquis sipped his wine slowly.
“I shall double your allowance, and, as to cutting you, that would be inconvenient and troublesome, not to say vulgar. Of course I shall keep to my resolve respecting the property, that will go to Lady Grace as I said.”
Lord Neville’s face flushed.
“She is welcome to it—quite welcome to it,” he said at once; “I am glad that it should be so. I—I think you have acted very generously to me, and I thank you, sir.”
The marquis inclined his head, a faint smile hovering about his thin lips.