"None," Brooks answered.
"Well, then," Lady Caroom said, "there is no immediate chance of your being in a position to marry Sybil. Don't look at me as though I were saying unkind things. I am not. I am only talking common-sense. What is your income?"
"About two thousand pounds, but some of that half, perhaps more—goes to the Society."
"Exactly. It would be impossible for you to marry Sybil on the whole of it, or twice the whole of it."
"You want me then," Brooks said, "to be reconciled to my father. Yet you—you yourself will not trust him."
"I have not expressed any wish of the sort," Lady Caroom said, kindly. "I only wished to point out that as things are you were not in a position to ask Sybil to marry you, and therefore I want you to keep away from her. I mean this kindly for both of you. Of course if Sybil is absolutely in earnest, if the matter has gone too far, we must talk it all over again and see what is to be done. But I want you to give her a chance. Keep away for a time. Your father may live for twenty-five years. If your relations with him all that time continue as they are now, marriage with a girl brought up like Sybil would be an impossibility."
Brooks was silent for several moments. Then he looked up suddenly.
"Has Lady Sybil said anything to you—which led you to speak to me?"
Lady Caroom shook her head.
"No. She is very young, you know. Frankly, I do not believe that she knows her own mind. You have not spoken to her, of course?" "No!"