"Don't be in a hurry," replied that gentleman coolly; "you haven't heard me out yet. Though I may consent to take the very opposite line of conduct which I might be expected to take as a man of the world, I am not going to allow you and Charlotte to make fools of yourselves. There must be no love-in-a-cottage business, no marrying on nothing a year, with the expectation that papa and mamma will make up the difference between that and a comfortable income. In plain English, if I consent to receive you as Charlotte's future husband, you and she must consent to wait until you can, to my entire satisfaction, prove yourself in a position to keep a wife." Valentine sighed doubtfully.
"I don't think either Miss Halliday or I are in an unreasonable hurry to begin life together," he said thoughtfully; "but there must be some fixed limit to our probation. I am afraid the waiting will be a very long business, if I am to obtain a position that will satisfy you before I ask my dear girl to share my fate."
"Are your prospects so very black?"
"No; to my mind they seem wonderfully bright. But the earnings of a magazine-writer will scarcely come up to your idea of an independence. Just now I am getting about ten pounds a month. With industry, I may stretch that ten to twenty; and with luck I might make the twenty into thirty—forty—fifty. A man has only to achieve something like a reputation in order to make a handsome living by his pen."
"I am very glad to hear that," said Mr. Sheldon; "and when you can fairly demonstrate to me that you are earning thirty pounds a month, you shall have my consent to your marriage with Charlotte, and I will do what I can to give you a fair start in life. I suppose you know that she hasn't a sixpence in the world, that she can call her own?"
This was a trying question for Valentine Hawkehurst, and Mr. Sheldon looked at him with a sharp scrutinising glance as he awaited a reply. The young man flushed crimson, and grew pale again before he spoke.
"Yes," he said, "I have long been aware that Miss Halliday has no legal claim on her father's fortune."
"There you have hit the mark," cried Mr. Sheldon. "She has no claim to a sixpence in law; but to an honourable man that is not the question. Poor Halliday's money amounted in all to something like eighteen thousand pounds. That sum passed into my possession when I married my poor friend's widow, who had too much respect for me to hamper my position as a man of business by any legal restraints that would have hindered my making the wisest use of her money. I have used that money, and I need scarcely tell you that I have employed it with considerable advantage to myself and Georgy. I therefore can afford to be generous, and I mean to be so; but the manner in which I do things must be of my own choosing. My own children are dead, and there is no one belonging to me that stands in Miss Halliday's way. When I die she will inherit a handsome fortune. And if she marries with my approval, I shall present her with a very comfortable dowry. I think you will allow that this is fair enough."
"Nothing could be fairer or more generous," replied Valentine with enthusiasm.
Mr. Sheldon's agreeable candour had entirely subjugated him. Despite of all that George had said to his brother's prejudice, he was ready to believe implicitly in Philip's fair dealing.