“How I hate him and envy him!” complained the man bitterly. “If I had only half that money, would you marry me?”
“Yes, for only half of it, and be thankful!” cried Rosalind. “For, after all, I shall not get more than half, anyway. There are his two daughters to inherit, and, besides, he has made up with Charley; and unless I play my cards very cleverly he will revoke that disinheritance and leave him a million or so, very likely.”
“But I thought his son was going to die?”
“Nothing of the kind. He is recovering very fast, and so is his wife, the low actress, and they think I have forgiven them and will have them whining around me after I marry the father. But nothing of the kind, I can assure you, for I have sworn they shall never cross the senator’s threshold when once it is mine.”
“It is hard lines on you, Rosalind, after thinking them both dead.”
“Yes, is it not? I am almost tempted to give him an overdose of something when no one is looking. It would soon finish him in his weak state, eh?”
It almost seemed to Berenice that the man’s shuddering shook the branches where he leaned, or was it only a light wind?
He said quickly:
“Ugh! Rosalind, you make me shudder, you say jesting things so seriously. No, don’t poison the poor fellow. Murder will out, you know. Oh, I say, darling, cut it all and come away with me and be married in Paris. We love each other, and we can be happy somehow. As for money, there’s the gambling table. I never told you I broke the bank at Monte Carlo once. I did, and I can do it again.”
“You’ve been over all that before, Adrian, to no good. Why repeat it? I love you as well as I once loved Charley, but I will never marry any but a rich man, I swear. But I have promised you, and I mean it, that you shall be my true lover, while old Moneybags lives, and when he dies, my second husband,” Rosalind answered frankly, and the man sighed: