“Oh, nonsense. For Heaven’s sake, let us have no hypocrisy. You offer to sell this girl to me, with her fortune in the future—what is the price I am to pay for it?”
“If you insist upon putting it with such—may I say—barbaric directness——”
“Yes, I do. I want the thing plain and distinct. I don’t suppose it is for any love of me that you come, as you say, to ‘make my fortune!’”
“Not altogether; though I have always regarded you as a very dear friend, Percy.”
The young man made a movement of impatience.
“Yes, yes, I know! But you have some object in view; what is it? You don’t want me to believe that I am to give you nothing in return for a wealthy wife. What is it?”
Spenser Churchill drew a paper from his pocket.
“Really, it is marvelously like Faust and Mephistopheles, isn’t it?”
“If that’s a document I am to sign, it really is,” assented Percy, with a grim smile.
“Well, I shall want your signature, my dear Percy, but only in ordinary ink—only in ordinary ink.”