"Father, you did promise me you would let me marry him on eight hundred a year."
"Well, yes, I did. I don't like it, but I did say so. In short, I told him you had worked me up to that point."
"And what did he say?"
"He said he did not think in that case that any real difficulty about money need arise; that at one moment he had stood to lose all he had, and he had lost two millions, but that his affairs had taken an unexpected turn during the last twenty-four hours, and he believed he could count on an odd million or so, certainly on half a million. I collapsed, Anne. My attitude fell to pieces. It was Vanbrunt who scored. He had had a perfectly grave face till then. Then he smiled grimly, and we shook hands. He did not say much, but what he did say was to the point. I think, my dear, that while Vanbrunt lasts, his love for you will last. He has got it very firmly screwed into him. But these interviews annihilate me."
The Duke raised the kitchen cat to his knee, and rubbed it behind the ears.
"I made the match, Anne," he said; "you owe it all to me. I asked him to dinner when I met him at that first directors' meeting a fortnight ago. I had it in my mind then."
"Father! You know you had not."
"Well, no. I had not. I did not think of it! I can't say I did. But still, I was a sort of bulwark to the whole thing. You had my moral support. I shall tell your mother so."