Her short, pretty upper lip quivered. Her eyes filled. “If you didn’t approve, dear, why didn’t you stop me long ago? Why did you let me go on until there was no turning back?”
I was silent. There seemed to be no answer to that.
“Did you do it purposely, Godfrey?” said she, with melancholy eyes upon me. “Did you lure us on, so that you could crush us at one stroke?”
I was silent.
“I can’t believe that of you. I won’t believe it until you compel me to.”
“As I understand it,” said I, “you propose that I hand over to this young man four million——”
“Only about half of it, Godfrey,” cried she, reviving. “The other half would be Margot’s—for her own income.”
“Then that I hand over to this amiable, insignificant young foreigner two million dollars to induce him to consent to the degradation of marrying my daughter—to have him going about, saying in effect, ‘It is true, she is only one of those low Americans, but don’t forget that I got two million dollars for stooping.’ Is that the proposition?”
“You know it isn’t!” cried she. “He doesn’t feel that he is degrading himself. He feels proud of winning her—the most beautiful, the best mannered girl in London. But it’d be simply impossible for them to marry without the money. I shouldn’t want it. They would be wretched. You talk like a sentimental schoolboy, Godfrey. How could two refined, sensitive people such as Hugh and Margot, used to every luxury, used to being foremost in society—how could they be happy without the means——”
“The money,” I corrected blandly.