'But there is the rub,' said the Captain, interrupting her. 'If I were rich I would share it with you and welcome, but I am not rich; I am miserably poor, hardly able to keep my head out of a debtor's prison.'
'Harry, I do not mind that. You are bound to me; you cannot desert me in my misery. No, I know you too well. You are too good, too noble, too true a gentleman. I cannot, I will not believe it. Take me as I am. We can but be poor together, and I will work as your slave. With love labour is light, and poverty is made rich.'
'That is rather a pretty sentiment, Orange, but it is impracticable.'
'It is not impracticable. Try me.'
'That is absurd. I cannot try you, and, if the experiment fails, dissolve the partnership.'
She was silent, and looked him full in the face. Then her feelings overcame her. She stretched out her arms to him. 'Harry,' she gasped, 'Harry, I love you!'
He did not put out his arms to encircle her, to take her to his heart; but he put his hand to his pipe and began to scrape out the ashes with a bit of stick—a toothpick that was on the mantelpiece.
'Be reasonable, Orange; it is impossible for us to marry now. There is this terrible scandal about Ophir barring it for one thing; there is my poverty for another. We must wait.'
'I knew it,' she said, relieved; 'I knew the delay was for a time only. But, Harry, in the meanwhile I have no home. Where am I to live? What roof is to cover me from the rain and the snow? Where am I to get food to put in my mouth, whence the clothes to cover me? Whilst you are waiting for Ophir to be forgotten, I am starving.'
'This calls for consideration,' he said, still cleaning his pipe; and now he blew through it, to assure himself that the passage was clear.