I told him of my little estate in Hampshire with its small manor house on the shores of the Solent, and how I had let it to a yachting man who had taken a fancy to it; it being too large for my modest bachelor wants. I told him proudly of my balance at the bank, swelled by the thousand of the old lady of Monmouth Street, of which he already knew. I told him what my income was from every source, and finally what I succeeded in wringing annually from the publishing body. This last item seemed to amuse him mightily, despite his polite effort to listen to me with becoming solemnity.
"Very good, very good, Anstruther," he said at last encouragingly, "I see you are quite capable of maintaining a wife in a modest way. It is very creditable to you, too, that you have taken to making money by your pen. With regard to Dolores, however, should she become your wife, she is not likely to be a burden to you financially. She will, in the first place, become entitled on her marriage to an income of fifty thousand dollars, which arises from property which I settled upon her mother.
"Then, she is my only child as you know, and I shall make a further settlement upon her. My income has been accumulating for years, I want but little; when I die she and her children will have all."
The amount he mentioned certainly took my breath away, but I raised my hand and asked him to stop.
"Believe me, Don Juan," I said, "I should be a happier man if I could supply her wants by the work of my hands."
"I do believe you," he answered, "and those would be my own sentiments exactly under similar circumstances. You will, however, not find a good income a bar to marital happiness if used judiciously. But enough of financial matters; I wish to come to another more important point. I believe it that Dolores loves you; from my own observations I believe she does, but I must hear it from her own lips.
"Should it prove to be the case, which I do not doubt, then I will give my consent to your marriage."
I rushed forward joyfully to thank him, for I knew what Dolores' answer would be, but he held up his finger to check me.
"I will give my consent under those circumstances," he continued, "on one condition."
"And that?" I asked eagerly.