“Impossible,” said Bottles again. “Besides, if she did you don’t want to marry her.”
“Marry her! No, indeed. I am not mad. I shall have to get out of the scrape as best I can—always supposing my view of the lady is correct.”
“Excuse me,” said Bottles with a gasp, “but I must ask you—in short, have you ever been on affectionate terms with Madeline?”
“Never, on my honour.”
“And yet you think she will marry you if you ask her, even after what took place with me yesterday?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because, my boy,” replied Sir Eustace with a cynical smile, “I have eight thousand a year and you have eight hundred—because I have a title and you have none. That you may happen to be the better fellow of the two will, I fear, not make up for those deficiencies.”
Bottles with a motion of his hand waved his brother’s courtly compliment away, as it were, and turned on him with a set white face.
“I do not believe you, Eustace,” he said. “Do you understand what you make out this lady to be when you say that she could kiss me and tell me that she loved me—for she did both yesterday—and promise to marry you to-day?”