As was before hinted, Sir Ranald's emotions were of a curiously mingled nature. He felt that he certainly owed a debt of gratitude to Lord Cadbury for relieving him of terrible monetary pressure, and he was anxious, for various reasons, that Alison should accept him. He had no romance in his nature—never had any, and did not believe that disparity of years and tastes—still less a secret or previous fancy—were to be valued or consulted at all!
He felt that he acted wisely to his daughter in leaguing with the wealthy peer against her; yet, over and above all, he loved her dearly and tenderly; and amid all this was an undying hostility to Bevil Goring, whom he deemed the real cause of all this opposition to their wishes, and consequently the present trouble, turmoil, and unnecessary voyaging in rough and wintry weather.
Though it was a relief, without doubt, to be away now beyond the reach or ken of the hook-nosed or vulture-eyed money-lenders, who, like Slagg, had long possessed, among their ofttimes hopelessly-regarded assets, his bills and acceptances.
He saw she looked pale, very pale indeed; but that, of course, he attributed to the mal de mer; but as for love, no one, he believed, ever sickened or died of that. A long separation was the surest and best cure.
'Foolish girl!' he began at once; 'still mooning, and actually talking, as Cadbury told me, of that utterly ineligible and most detrimental fellow at Aldershot; I am certain you could forget him if you tried, Alison. In these days of ours, ninety-nine girls out of a hundred would leap with exultation at such offers as those of Lord Cadbury.'
'Then, I suppose, I must be the hundredth girl, papa,' said Alison, steadily and gravely; for a consciousness that her father, whom she had deemed the mirror of honour, had leagued with this parvenu to deceive her, had caused a change in her manner towards him.
'And I repeat that in these days of ours,' he continued, 'it is, or ought to be, the object of both men and women to marry well.'
'That is, to marry for money,' said Alison.
'Yes; if a girl has beauty and birth, but not money, she should look for some one who has that more than necessary element towards our very existence. If she has money with both these attributes, she should look for something more.'
'More, papa?'