“I hate things to be called temptations, and snares, and the rest of it,” said Lady Lackington; “it is a very tiresome cant. You may tell me while I am waiting for my fish-sauce at dinner, it is a temptation; but if you wish me really to understand the word, tell me of some wonderful speculation, some marvellous scheme for securing millions. Oh, dear Mr. Dunn, you who really know the way, will you just show me the road to—I will be moderate—about twenty thousand pounds?”
“Nothing easier, my Lady, if you are disposed to risk forty.”
“But I am not, sir. I have not the slightest intention to risk one hundred. I 'm not a gambler.”
“And yet what your Ladyship points at is very like gambling.”
“Pray place that word along with temptation, in the forbidden category; it is quite hateful to me.”
“Have you the same dislike to chance, Lady Grace?” said he, stealing a look at her face with some earnestness.
“No,” said she, in a low voice; “it is all I have to look for.”
“By the way, Mr. Dunn, what are they doing in Parliament about us? Is there not something contemplated by which we can insist upon separate maintenance, or having a suitable settlement, or—”
“Separation—divorce,” said Lady Grace, solemnly.
“No, my Lady, the law is only repairing an old road, not making a new one. The want of the age is cheapness,—cheap literature, cheap postage, and cheap travelling, and why not cheap divorce? Legislation now professes as its great aim to extend to the poor all the comforts of the rich; and as this is supposed to be one of them—”