"Did she know she hadn't any money when you asked her to marry you?" enquired Jimmy Marrable.
"No."
"And did she go on refusing you after you had informed her she was a pauper?"
Hughie had seen this question coming from afar. He turned a delicate carmine. His uncle surveyed him, and nodded comprehendingly.
"Quite so!" he said. "Quite so! You never told her."
"No," said Hughie, "I hadn't the heart. It seemed like—like trying to coerce her into marrying me. No, I just let her imagine that she had a tidy little fortune invested, and that she could live on the interest—three hundred a year. I—I found that sum for her, and she took it all right. After all, she was a woman, and women will swallow almost anything you tell them about money matters. If they jib at all, all you have to do is to surround yourself with a cloud of technicalities, and they cave in at once. I think Joey was a little surprised at not getting more, for she had thought herself a bit of an heiress; but she never said a word. In fact, she was so kind about it that I saw she was convinced I had made a mess of things somewhere, and must be protected accordingly. She put it all down to my usual incompetence, I suppose,—as far as I can see, she considers me a born fool,—and accepted the situation loyally."
"She would do that," said Jimmy Marrable.
"Well," continued Hughie, "Joan was all right, but everybody else was the devil. An awful girl friend of hers, called Harbord—"
"I know—twelve per cent!" gurgled Jimmy Marrable.
"Yes. Well, she came and gave me beans to begin with. Then young Lance began to suspect me,—he never could stand me at any price,—and he came and raised Cain one day at a luncheon party I was giving—but, by the way, that's all right now; Lance has come round completely. Even the Leroys couldn't conceal their conviction that I had made a bungle somewhere—an honest bungle, of course, but a bungle. And finally an unutterable sweep called Haliburton came along. I knew something of him—so much, in fact, that it never occurred to me that there was anything to fear from him. But he got the master-grip on me when every one else had failed. Joey—our Joey—fell in love with him and promised to marry him!"