"No; you would not."
"Indeed! Why would I not, pray?" she inquired, with mocking incredulity.
"Oh, because of a mere trifle in your code of morals—an insignificant impediment."
"Tchut!" she exclaimed, contemptuously. "Do you think me quite an idiot?"
"I think you would be much worse than an idiot if, in case of my father's discarding you, you should move an inch toward obtaining alimony or in the case of the coveted 'third.'"
"Pshaw! Why, pray?"
"Because you have not, and never can have, the shadow of a right to either."
"Bah! why not?"
"Because—Alfred Whyte is living!"
She caught her breath and gazed at the speaker with great dilating blue eyes.