"No time like the present," she answered, resolutely. "You are trying to put me off again, Clive; but beware how you trifle with me, my Lord Lancaster, or I shall know how to punish you," she said, shaking her skinny, diamond-ringed finger at him.
His handsome face flushed haughtily.
"Go on, madame," he said, with a slight, mocking bow. "I am the slave of your pleasure."
She regarded the handsome, insubordinate face in dead silence a minute.
"You already anticipate what I would say," she said. "Why is the idea so distasteful to you, Clive? Any young man in your position might be transported with joy at the thought of inheriting my fortune."
He bowed silently.
"You know," she went on, coolly, "you can never come home to live on your ancestral acres unless you marry money or inherit it."
"Thanks to the folly of my predecessors," he said, bitterly.
"Never mind your predecessors, Clive. There is a woman here whom I want you to marry. Win her and make her mistress of Lancaster Park, and my fortune is yours."
"Am I to have her for the asking?" he inquired, with a delicate sarcasm.