“But if I was poor you wouldn’t?”
“No. For both our sakes. . . . Yes—I’m honest. For both. We’re earthy, you know. It’ld mean that we’ld have to come down—come down in the world. Well, I shouldn’t like that—I’ld hate it. And so would you. And on the top of it all I should always know two things—first, that I’d brought you down, and then that you might have married a richer man.”
“How would you bring me down if I was poor?”
“My dear, your face is your fortune—your face and your pretty ways. You might be poor as blazes, but as long as you stayed single you could dine and dance and sleep in half the ancestral homes of England.”
“Sort of second Queen Elizabeth?” said Athalia. “I must be nice.”
“Oh, but you are,” said Punch. “Most—er—most nice.”
“D’you mind speaking the truth?”
Fairfax moistened his lips.
“You are probably the most adorable woman in London to-day. I have never heard anything said of you which you would not have liked to hear. Finally, you are frequently indicated as a future Duchess: in fact, if you married me, I believe sterling would drop two stitches—I mean, points.”
“I wish I was poor,” said Miss Choate.