"That girl, you know, is heiress of all this—nothing but the title goes to Dives, and the small estate of Grimalston," said Lady Alice. "Of course I love my grandchild, but it always seems to me wrong to strip a title of its support, and send down the estates by a different line."
"Miss Beatrix Marlowe has a great deal too much for her own happiness. It is a disproportioned fortune, and in a young lady so sensible will awake suspicions of all her suitors. 'You are at my feet, sir,' she will think, 'but is your worship inspired by love or by avarice?' She is in the situation of that prince who turned all he touched into gold; while it feeds the love of money, it starves nature."
"I don't think it has troubled her head much as yet. If she had no dot whatever, she could not be less conscious," said the old lady.
"Some people might go through life and never feel it; and even of those who do, I doubt if there is one who would voluntarily surrender the consequence or the power of exorbitant wealth for the speculative blessing of friends and lovers more sincere. I could quite fancy, notwithstanding, a lady, either wise or sensitive, choosing a life of celibacy in preference to marriage under conditions so suspicious. Miss Marlowe would be a happier woman with only four or five hundred pounds a-year."
"Well, maybe so," said the old lady, dubiously, for she knew something of the world as well as of the affections.
"She will not, most likely, give it away; but if it were taken, she would be happier. Few people have nerve for an operation, and yet many are the more comfortable when it is performed."
"Beatrix has only been out one season, and that but interruptedly. She has been very much admired, though, and I have no doubt will be very suitably married."
"There are disadvantages, however."
"I don't understand," said Lady Alice, a little stiffly.
"I mean the tragedy in which Sir Jekyl is implicated," said M. Varbarriere, rising, and looking, without intending it, so sternly at Lady Alice, that she winced under it.