"No one could congratulate you more sincerely than I do, Lady Broadhem," I said. "I can conceive no greater happiness than an alliance in which that perfect harmony of thought and feeling you describe reigns paramount; and now it is my turn to tell you why I have acted the part which seems so incomprehensible to you. Grandon is, as you know, my dearest friend, but he is poor. Ursula cares for him more, if possible, than I do. And I need not tell you that my own attachment to your daughter is the strongest sentiment of my nature. Now, I determined to prove the depth of my affection for these two people by making them both happy, and when all my arrangements were completed I intended to make a final stipulation with you, that you should give your consent to their marriage, and that I should play the part of a bountiful prince in the Arabian Nights, and that we should all live happy ever after."
"A very pretty little plot indeed," said Lady Broadhem, with a sneer. "You are too good and disinterested for this planet, Frank. So you thought you could coerce me into giving my consent to a marriage I never have approved, and never shall?"
"Don't be too sure of that," I said, and I allowed the faintest tinge of insolence to appear in my manner, for the sentiments and the sneer that accompanied it both irritated me, and I felt that we were morally drawing our revolvers, and looking at the caps.
"Why not? What do you mean?" she said, sharply. "Who do you suppose is to dictate to me upon such a subject? Ursula will be very well off, and I shall take care that she marries suitably."
"I don't know where she is to get her money from," I said, calmly.
"You need give yourself no anxiety about her for the future, I assure you. Mr Chundango has been most liberal in his arrangements about both my girls."
"But, unfortunately, it is not in Mr Chundango's power to make any such arrangements," I retorted. "I am sure nothing will alter your feelings towards a man you really love, and that your own personal conduct will not be influenced by the fact that Mr Chundango is a beggar. You could go back to India with him, you know, and make a home for him in a bungalow in the Bombay Ghauts."
Lady Broadhem's face had become rigid and stony; so had my whole nature. I did not feel a particle of compassion or of triumph. I was cold, hard, and judicial. Her hour was come, and I had to pass the sentence. "Yes," I said, "there is no doubt about it. I got it from Bodwinkle this moment. The Bombay mail arrived last night, and you know the way everything has been crashing there through speculations in Back Bay shares, cotton, &c. Well, the great Parsee house of Burstupjee Cockabhoy has come down with a grand crash, and all our friend Chundango's jewels in the back verandah, added to everything else he possesses in the world, will fail to meet his liabilities. Terrible thing, isn't it? but we must bear up, you know."
But Lady Broadhem had done bearing up some time ago, and had sunk gently back on the couch, in a dead faint. As there was not the slightest sham about it, I rang the bell for Jenkins, and felt under the pillow for the "pick-me-up," which I failed to make her swallow; so I slapped the soles of her feet with her shoes, till her maid arrived, followed by Drippings, who, I suspect, had spent some portion of his time in the neighbourhood of the keyhole.
"I will go and look for Lady Ursula," I said; "where shall I find her?"