"Pray, what else can I do?" Mr. Noble queries, bewildered, and Ivy groans, lugubriously.
"Oh, nothing, nothing," the lady answers, with a scornful laugh. "But if it were me who had been deluded into such a marriage with a low and mercenary girl, I am sure that nothing could induce me to live with her. I would either divorce her, or pension her off."
Mr. Noble walks up and down the floor with folded arms, in deep agitation.
"It would be quite impossible to procure a divorce," he answers, after a moment's thought. "I could assign no earthly cause for demanding one. I married her of my own free will, though I admit I was unduly persuaded."
"All she cares for is your money," snaps Ivy, quite ignoring the fact that this was her own motive for winning him. "It will kill me if you take her home with you, Leslie. I shall die of a broken heart."
"Poor, deceived dear," sighs her mother, while Leslie breaks out, ruefully:
"What else can I possibly do, Ivy?"
Mrs. Cleveland, who had been silently cogitating, answers with sudden blandness:
"If you want my advice, Leslie, you shall have it, unfairly as you have treated us. I say the girl is ignorant and uneducated, and quite unfit to become the mistress of your elegant home in Philadelphia. If you are compelled to stick to your unlucky bargain, you must try and make the best of it. You will have to put her into a strict convent school where her ill-nature will be tamed down, and her manners educated up to the proper standard for your wife. How do you like that plan?"
Her magnetic gaze is fixed on Ivy as she speaks, compelling her to be silent, though she was raising her shrill voice in protest.