“Why, I did not even know Miss Charteris had a sister!” exclaimed Dar-ley in amazement.
“No? Why, Miss Florence Charteris lives here—in Dutton!”
“Miss Charteris mentioned an aunt, and hinted at some one else whom she said I would see, now that I think of it.”
“Irony, I suppose,” said Leonard quietly, smiling a queer little smile. “Yes, Miss Charteris the second lives in Dutton: a quaint, gray little life, good, patient, and God-like. She is the sweet angel of Dutton. But tell me, Percy, are you in love with your Miss Charteris?”
“I am afraid she is not my Miss Charteris,” said Darley, smiling. “And to be candid with you, Jack, I am not in love with her—for which, perhaps, I should be thankful. However, if Miss Charteris does accept me, which I think is highly improbable, I shall marry her for money.”
Leonard shook his head. “I thought that was the way the wind lay,” he said sagaciously. “Don't do it,” he added tersely, after a pause. “Take an old fool's advice—don't do it. I think you would only live to regret having sold yourself into bondage. That is what it would amount to in your case. You are not built upon rough enough lines, I know, not to care at having your poverty sneered at and constantly thrown in your face. It is a puzzle to me how any man with any sense of independence and honor can sell himself, as some men do; and it is beyond my understanding how you, with your fine feelings and high ideal of manhood, ever thought of such a thing.”
This was certainly rubbing it in, Dar-ley thought. But, then, Leonard was such an exceptionally odd fellow, with his one-man-in-a-million code of chivalry and his ethical eccentricities. Still, Darley shrunk at the castigation, because he knew that the feelings that prompted it were sincere.
“But I am terribly in debt, Jack,” he said, almost deprecatingly. “What is there left for me to do?”
“What is there left? The opportunity to fight it out!” retorted Leonard. “Retrench. In a year, or two at most, unless you are hopelessly insolvent, if you live without the profitless pleasures that have brought you to this pass, you can come out triumphantly independent.”
Darley shook his head. “I am afraid I could not stand the strain, Jack,” he answered, almost sadly. “A fellow of your caliber might. How is it, by the way, that you yourself are still in single harness?”