“Claude is a little meddler. I assure you, Fan, Gaunt knows his own affairs best.”
“No,” cried Frances: “when I tell you, Markham, when I tell you! that they are quite poor, really poor—not like you.”
“I have told you, my little dear, that I am the poorest beggar in London.”
“Oh Markham! and you drive about in hansoms, and smoke cigars, all day.”
“Well, my dear, what would you have me do? Keep on trudging through the mud, which would waste all my time; or get on the knife-board of an omnibus? Well, these are the only alternatives. The omnibuses have their recommendation—they are fun; but after a while, society in that development palls upon the intelligent observer. What do you want me to do, Fan? Come, I have a deal on my mind; but to please you, and to make you hold your tongue, if there is anything I can do, I will try.”
“You can do everything, Markham. Warn him that he is wasting his money—that he is spending what belongs to the old people—that he is making himself wretched. Oh, don’t laugh, Markham! Oh, if I were in your place! I know what I should do—I would get him to go home, instead of going to—those places.”
“Which places, Fan?”
“Oh,” cried the girl, exasperated to tears, “how can I tell?—the places you know—the places you have taken him to, Markham—places where, if the poor General knew it, or Mrs Gaunt——”
“There you are making a mistake, little Fan. The good people would think their son was in very fine company. If he tells them the names of the persons he meets, they will think——”
“Then you know they will think wrong, Markham!” she cried, almost with violence, keeping herself with a most strenuous effort from an outburst of indignant weeping. He did not reply at once; and she thought he was about to consider the question on its merits, and endeavour to find out what he could do. But she was undeceived when he spoke.