Mrs. Wilberton tilted her head a little to one side, and smiled at poor Bertram with the smile, satisfied yet benevolent, of one who had successfully brought off a promised feat—a smile of friendly challenge to criticise or reply.
But Bertram had his reply ready.
“A compact,” he said. “How can any human being have any knowledge of such a compact, except the parties to it? Besides, I know Harry Pontycroft—I've known him for years, intimately. He would be utterly incapable of such a thing. Sell his 'social influence' for money? Worse still, sell his sister's? Old Adgate may have been a moneylender, and Harry Pontycroft may have owed him money. But to get out of it by a proceeding so ignoble as that—his character is the negation of the very idea. And then, a titled husband! Surely, a girl of Miss Adgate's beauty and wealth would need little assistance in finding one, if she really cared about it. And anyhow, to act as her matrimonial agent—that again is a thing of which Harry Pontycroft would be incapable. But, for my part, I can't believe that Miss Adgate has any such desire. She looks to me like a young woman of mind and heart, with ideas and ideals, who would either marry for love pure and simple, or not at all.”
His visitor's lips compressed themselves—but failed to hide her amusement. “Oh, looks!” she said. “Ideas, ideals? What do we know of the ideas and ideals of those queer people? Shylock's daughter. You may be sure that whatever their ideals may be, they're very different from any we're familiar with. A young woman who never had a home, whose childhood was passed in hotels.” Mrs. Wilberton shuddered.
“Yes,” agreed Bertram, “that's sad to think of. But Shylock's daughter—even Shylock's daughter married for love.”
“If you come to that,” Mrs. Wilberton answered him, “it's as easy to love a peer as a peasant.”
“By the bye,” questioned Bertram, thinking of Lewis Vincent, “if the Pontycrofts are really as mercenary as all this would show them to be, why doesn't Ponty marry her himself? He's not a peer, to be sure, but in England the headships of some of your ancient untitled families almost outrank peerages, do they not?”
Mrs. Wilberton's face resumed its look of mystery. “Henry Pontycroft would be only too glad to marry her—if he could,” she said. “But alack-a-day for him, he can't, and for the best of reasons. He is already married.”
Bertram stared, frowning.
“Pontycroft married?” he doubted, his voice falling. “But since when? It must be very recent—and it's astonishing I shouldn't have heard.”