She was silent for a minute, and her face clouded.
"He will say I am less worthy of you than ever," she replied gravely. "Oh, yes! my father will be on your side; he is as incautious as any of you. But I never thought your father would be so rash. You think you know me, Philip, but all you are doing proves that you are mistaken; you do not know me at all. I could never, never marry a poor man, however much I loved him. And you will be poor."
"Poor!" he repeated, "no, no! I shall not be a rich landowner, but I shall have ample means for all your wants and my own. We shall be poorer than my brothers, of course, but not as poor as yours. They have their living to get, and so have I."
"It is not all quite settled yet?" she said plaintively.
"What is not settled?" he inquired.
"Nobody knows yet but ourselves," she continued; "everything is not lost. No one can know unless you proclaim it. I have been thinking all day long while I have been lying ill, and I see all the ruin and misery it will bring upon you all. The monster himself will be wretched; if you wish to secure his happiness you should leave him here. Taking him off to England would be ridiculous."
"There is nothing else to be done," said Philip briefly.
But he left Cortina in charge of Martin with a heavier heart for this conversation with Phyllis. The clumsy form and uncouth gestures of Martin, who refused any other seat than the box of the carriage, struck him the more forcibly now they were starting on their way to England. He looked a middle-aged man, scarcely younger than his father. Would it be possible to mold him, even by little and little, by the slowest degrees, into anything like the form of an English gentleman? It was too late for that.