"What does that matter to me?" cried the girl, passionately. "Do you think that I am going to place my happiness in Lord Anvers' hands? A man I detest with all my heart. I shall marry Ralph, and no one else."
"Then you will lose your money," said Mrs. Mellop, with a gesture of despair.
"I don't mind losing it, so long as I have love."
"Love!" The widow made a face. "Oh! love is all very well, but it isn't money, and money is a necessity."
"To you perhaps, Mrs. Mellop, not to me. Ralph would marry me to-morrow if I chose. But I don't choose, as such a marriage would hinder his career. We must wait for better times."
"Well, I'm sure I hope you'll get your own way. But you can have no idea how hard your father is," wailed Mrs. Mellop. "He throws me over as coolly as though I were an old shoe, and I shall have to go to-morrow. Oh! the man's mad," she added, in a petty rage, "to think of marrying that horrid woman."
"Well, you have had your chance," Audrey said, with a shrug; "and, as I told you, my father has taken his own way. I would rather you had married him."
"Then you love me, darling?" cried the effusive widow, caressingly.
"No, I don't," rejoined the girl, removing a pair of fond arms which had been thrown round her neck; "but of two evils I choose the least.
"You would make a better Lady Branwin than Miss Pearl."