“What?”
“I’d have saved ye all worry over the matter but that I wished ye to learn the difficulties. I have never made pretence to doing favours out of mere kindness of heart, and ye know quite as well as I why I have given ye lodging and other aids. But for that very reason I am getting wearied of doing all and receiving nothing, and have come to the end. Give me Miss Janice, and my wife and mother shall have passage in the ship I sail in.”
“You take a poor way, Lord Clowes, to gain your wish,” said Janice. “Generosity—”
“Has had a six months’ trial, and brought me no nearer to a consummation,” interrupted the baron. “Small wonder I sicken of it and lose patience.”
“’T is not to be expected that I would let Janice wed thee when her father has given thee nay.”
“Because he has passed his word to another, and so holds himself bound. He said he’d consent but for that, and by acting in his absence ye can save him a broken oath, yet do the sensible thing. He’ll be glad enough once done; that I’ll tie to.”
“It scarce betters it in a moral sense,” replied Mrs. Meredith. “However, we will not answer till we have had a chance to discuss it by ourselves.”
“Janice,” said her mother, once they were alone, “thy dread of that man is a just one, and I—”
“I know—I know,” broke in the daughter, miserably; “but I—if I can make us all easy as to money and future—”
“Those are but worldly benefits, child.”