"Hush, and let me think!"
He paced the floor while his matrimonial adviser tapped a white kidded foot on the floor, and appeared to read plans of new battle in a mother-of-pearl paper-knife which she held between the tips of her fingers.
"I have it—and we'll do it quickly!—Mrs. Wybert!"
Mauburn's eyes opened widely.
"That absurd old Peter Bines has spoken to me of her three times lately. She's made a lot more money than she had in this same copper deal, and she'd a lot to begin with. I wondered why he spoke so enthusiastically of her, and I don't see now, but—"
"Well?"
"She'll take you, and you'll be as well set up as you were before. Listen. I met her last week at the Critchleys. She spoke of having seen you. I could see she was dead set to make a good marriage. You know she wanted to marry Fred Milbrey, but Horace and his mother wouldn't hear of it after Avice became engaged to Rulon Shepler. I'm in the Critchleys' box to-night and I understand she's to be there. Leave it to me. Now it's after nine, so run along."
"But, Mrs. Drelmer, there's that poor girl—she cares for me, and I like her immensely, you know—truly I do—and she's a trump—see where she says here she couldn't possibly leave her people now they've come down—even if matters were not otherwise impossible."
"Well, you see they're not only otherwise impossible, but every wise impossible. What could you do? Go to Montana with them and learn to be an Indian? Don't for heaven's sake sentimentalise! Go home and sleep like a rational creature. Come in by eleven to-morrow. Even without the title you'll be a splendid match for Mrs. Wybert, and she must have a tidy lot of millions after this deal."
Sorely distressed, he walked back to his lodgings in Thirty-second Street. Wild, Quixotic notions of sacrifice flooded his mood of dejection. If the worst came, he could go West with the family and learn how to do something. And yet—Mrs. Wybert. Of course it must be that. The other idea was absurd—too wild for serious consideration. He was thirty years old, and there was only one way for an English gentleman to live—even if it must break the heart of a poor girl who had loved him devotedly, and for whom he had felt a steady and genuine affection. He passed a troubled night.