"Just so," said Drake. "So I am in rather a hole. I always looked forward to inheriting Anglemere and the estate and my uncle's money. But all that is altered. He may have an heir who will very properly inherit all that I thought was to be mine. I wrote and told you of this, though it wasn't necessary; but I deemed it right to you to place the whole matter before you, Lucille. I've no doubt that the society papers have saved me the trouble, and helped you thoroughly to realize that the man to whom you were engaged was no longer the heir to the earldom of Angleford and Lord Angleford's money, but merely Drake Selbie, a mere nobody, and plunged up to his neck in debts and difficulties."
She was silent, and he went on:
"See here, Luce, I asked you to marry me because I loved you. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever met. I fell in love with you the first time I saw you—at that dance of the Horn-Wallises. Do you remember? I wanted you to be my wife; I wanted you more than I ever wanted anything else in my life. Do you not remember the day I proposed to you, there under Taplow Wood, at that picnic where we all got wet and miserable? And you said 'Yes'; and my uncle was pleased. But all is changed now; I am just Drake Selbie, with very little or no income, and a mountain of debts; with no prospects of becoming Lord Angleford and owner of the Angleford money and lands. And I want to know how this change—strikes you; what you mean, to do?"
She glanced up at him sideways.
"You—you haven't got my letters?" she said.
He shook his head.
"I'm—I'm sorry," she said. "It isn't my fault. Father—you know what he would say. He may be right. He said that—that you were ruined; that our marriage would be quite impossible; that—that our engagement must be broken off. Really, Drake, it is not my fault. You know how poor we are; that—that a rich marriage is an absolute necessity for me. Father is up to his neck in debt, too, and we scarcely seem to have a penny of ready money; it's nothing but duns, and duns, and duns, every day in the week; why, even now, we've had to bolt from London because I can't pay my milliner's bill. It's simply impossible for me to marry a poor man. I should only be a drag upon him; and father—well, father would be a drag upon him, too; you know what father is. And—and so, Drake, I wrote and told you that—that our engagement must be considered broken off and at an end."
She paused a moment, and looked from right to left, like some feeble animal driven into a corner, and restlessly conscious of Drake Selbie's stern regard.
"Of course I'm very sorry. You know I'm—I'm very fond of you. I don't think there is any one in the world like you; so—so handsome and—and altogether nice. But what can I do? I can't run against the wish of my father and of all my friends. In fact, I can't afford to marry you, Drake."
He looked at her with a bitter smile on his lips, and a still more bitter cynicism in his eyes.