"You don't comprehend me yet, mother. I--I'm going to leave you."
"To leave us!--O, to live away! Very well, Geoffrey," said the old lady, bridling up; "if you've grown too grand to live with your mother, I can only say I'm sorry for you. Though I never saw my name in print in the Times newspaper, except among the marriages; and if that's to be the effect it has upon me, I hope I never shall."
"My dear mother, how can you imagine any thing so absurd! The truth is--"
"O yes, Geoffrey, I understand. Ive not lived or sixty years in the world for nothing. Not that there's been ever the least word said about your friends coming pipe-smoking at all times of the night, or hot water required for spirits when Emma was that dead with sleep she could scarcely move; nor about young persons--female models you call them--trolloping misses I say."
It is worthy of remark that in all business matters Mrs. Ludlow was accustomed to treat her son as a cipher, forgetting that two-thirds of the income by which the house was supported were contributed by him. There was no thought of this, however, in honest old Geoff's mind as he said,
"Mother, you won't hear me out! The fact is, I'm going to be married."
"To be married, Geoffrey!" said the old lady, in a voice that was much softer and rather tremulous; "to be married, my dear boy! Well, that is news!" Her hands trembled as she laid them on his big shoulders and put up her face to kiss him. "Well, well, to be sure! I never thought you'd marry now, Geoffrey. I looked upon you as a confirmed old bachelor. And who is it that has caught you at last? Not Miss Sanders, is it?"
Geoffrey shook his head.
"I thought not. No, that would never do. Nice kind of girl too; but if we're to hold our heads so high when all our money comes out of sugar-hogsheads in Thames Street, why where will be the end of it, I should like to know? It isn't Miss Hall?"
Geoffrey repeated his shake.