“I know what you mean,” said she, in a careless, easy tone. “The bank has made use of private securities and title-deeds, just as those other people did—I forget their names—a couple of years ago.”
“It is not even that; but I repeat, the consequences may be to the full as disastrous.”
“You allude to this unhappy scrape of Jack's.”
“I do not. I was not then thinking of it.”
“Because, as to that, Lord Culduff said there never yet grew a tree where there was n't a branch or two might be lopped off with advantage. If Jack does n't think his station in life worth preserving, all the teaching in the world won't persuade him to maintain it.”
“Poor Jack!” said he, bitterly.
“Yes, I say, poor Jack! too. I think it's exactly the epithet to apply to one whose spirit is so much beneath his condition.”
“You are terribly changed, Marion. I do not know if you are aware of it?”
“I hope I am. I trust that I look at the events around me from a higher level than I have been accustomed to hitherto.”
“And is my father in a state to be consulted on a matter of this importance?” asked he, half indignantly.