“She ought to marry someone,” said Freddie earnestly. “I mean, all rot a girl like Jill having to knock about and rough it like this.”
“You’re perfectly right.”
“Of course,” said Freddie thoughtfully, “the catch in the whole dashed business is that she’s such a bally independent sort of girl. I mean to say, it’s quite possible she may hand Derek the mitten, you know.”
“In that case, let us hope that she will look more favorably on young Pilkington.”
“Yes,” said Freddie. “Well, yes. But—well, I wouldn’t call the Pilker a very ripe sporting proposition. About sixty to one against is the way I should figure it, if I were making a book. It may be just because I’m feeling a bit pipped this morning—got turfed out of bed at seven o’clock and all that—but I have an idea that she may give both of them the old razz. May be wrong, of course.”
“Let us hope that you are, my boy,” said Uncle Chris gravely. “For in that case I should be forced into a course of action from which I confess that I shrink.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Freddie, my boy, you are a very old friend of Jill’s and I am her uncle. I feel that I can speak plainly to you. Jill is the dearest thing to me in the world. She trusted me, and I failed her. I was responsible for the loss of her money, and my one object in life is to see her by some means or other in a position equal to the one of which I deprived her. If she marries a rich man, well and good. That, provided she marries him because she is fond of him, will be the very best thing that can happen. But if she does not there is another way. It may be possible for me to marry a rich woman.”
Freddie stopped, appalled.
“Good God! You don’t mean … you aren’t thinking of marrying Mrs Peagrim!”