"Would you secure to him a settled income? For an idle gentleman is bad enough; a penniless gentleman . . ."
"He has only to please me, my dear, and he will be launched and protected."
"But if he does not succeed in pleasing you?"
"Is it so difficult?"
"Oh!" Clara fretted.
"You see, my love, I answer you," said Sir Willoughby.
He resumed: "But let old Vernon have his trial with the lad. He has his own ideas. Let him carry them out. I shall watch the experiment."
Clara was for abandoning her task in sheer faintness.
"Is not the question one of money?" she said, shyly, knowing Mr.
Whitford to be poor.
"Old Vernon chooses to spend his money that way." replied Sir Willoughby. "If it saves him from breaking his shins and risking his neck on his Alps, we may consider it well employed."