'The courtship of a woman,' he droned away, 'is in my mind not fair to her until a man has to the full enough to sanction his asking her to marry him. And if he throws all he possesses on a stake... to win her—give her what she has a right to claim, he ought.... Only at present the prospect seems good.... He ought of course to wait. Well, the value of the stock I hold has doubled, and it increases. I am a careful watcher of the market. I have friends—brokers and railway Directors. I can rely on them.'
'Pray,' interposed Lady Dunstane, 'specify—I am rather in a mist—the exact point upon which you do me the honour to consult me.' She ridiculed herself for having imagined that such a man would come to consult her upon a point of business.
'It is,' he replied, 'this: whether, as affairs now stand with me—I have an income from my office, and personal property... say between thirteen and fourteen hundred a year to start with—whether you think me justified in asking a lady to share my lot?'
'Why not? But will you name the lady?'
'Then I may write at once? In your judgement.... Yes, the lady. I have not named her. I had no right. Besides, the general question first, in fairness to the petitioner. You might reasonably stipulate for more for a friend. She could make a match, as you have said...' he muttered of 'brilliant,' and 'the highest'; and his humbleness of the honest man enamoured touched Lady Dunstane. She saw him now as the man of strength that she would have selected from a thousand suitors to guide her dear friend.
She caught at a straw: 'Tell me, it is not Diana?'
'Diana Merion!'
As soon as he had said it he perceived pity, and he drew himself tight for the stroke. 'She's in love with some one?'
'She is engaged.'
He bore it well. He was a big-chested fellow, and that excruciating twist within of the revolution of the wheels of the brain snapping their course to grind the contrary to that of the heart, was revealed in one short lift and gasp, a compression of the tremendous change he underwent.