"It is not necessary to be a detective in plain clothes to see that," said Dick.
"No. It generally needs to be a magnifying-glass to see a woman's friendship, and then they are only expedients till we arrive, Dick. You need not he jealous of Miss Gresley. Miss West will forget all about her when she is Mrs. Vernon."
"She does not seem very keen about that," said Dick, grimly. "I'm only marking time. I'm no forwarder than I was."
"Well, it's your own fault for fixing your affections on a woman who is not anxious to marry. She has no objection to you. It is marriage she does not like."
"Oh, that's bosh!" said Dick. "All women wish to be married, and if they don't they ought to."
He felt that an invidious reflection had been east on Rachel.
"All the same, a man with one eye can see that women with money, or anything that makes them independent of us, don't flatter us by their alacrity to marry us. They will make fools of themselves for love—none greater—and they will marry for love. But their different attitude towards us, their natural lords and masters, directly we are no longer necessary to them as stepping-stones to a home and a recognized position, revolts me. If you had taken my advice at the start, you would have made up to one among the mob of women who are dependent on marriage for their very existence. If a man goes into that herd he will not be refused. And if he is it does not matter. It is the blessed custom of piling everything on to the eldest son, and leaving the women of the family almost penniless, which provides half of us with wives without any trouble to ourselves. Whatever we are, they have got to take us. The average dancing young woman living in luxury in her father's house is between the devil and the deep sea. We are frequently the devil; but it is not surprising that she can't face the alternative—a poverty to which she was not brought up, and in which she has seen her old spinster aunts. But I suppose in your case you really want the money?"
Dick looked rather hard at Lord Newhaven.
"I should not have said that unless I had known it to be a lie," continued the latter, "because I dislike being kicked. But, Dick, listen to me. You have not," with sudden misgiving, "laid any little matrimonial project before her this evening, have you?"
"No; I was not quite such a fool as that."