"I think so, at any rate. Why, I see! By Jove! of course you must be thinking the worst of me now! Oh, no! if you could not love me, Joan--pray pardon me, I had no right to call you by your name--you need not despise me. I cannot again ask you to be my wife, because," he laughs uneasily, "fortune has put it out of my power to take a wife. My trustee has made ducks and drakes of my property, or rather bulls and bears. I have but a trifle left to begin the world upon, and far too little to marry upon."
"I read of it in the papers. I saw that a Mr. Maitland was the chief sufferer, but I did not connect him with you," she says, in a low voice.
"No, of course not. How should you?" he answers lightly. But nevertheless her coldness is dreadful to him. He had thought she would express some sympathy. And gayly as he talks of it, he feels something of the importance of a ruined man and something of his claim to pity.
"And what are you going to do?"
"Do? We've arranged all that. They say there is a living to be made at the Bar in New Zealand, if one does not object to riding boots and spurs as part of the professional costume. Of course it will be a different sort of life, and Agnes' favorite patent leathers will be left behind in every sense. This would have been a bad blow to me"--there is a slight catch in his voice, and he gets up, and looks out of one of the windows with his back to her--"now I have learned from you that life should not be all lounging round the table and looking over other people's cards. It has been a sharp lesson, but very opportune as things have turned out. I am ready to take a hand myself now--even without a partner."
He does not at once turn round. He had not fancied she would take it like this, and he listens for a word to tell him that at any rate she is sorry--is grieved as for a stranger. Then he feels a sudden light, timid touch upon his arm. Joan is standing quite close to him, and does not move or take away her hand as he turns. Only she looks down at the floor when she speaks:
"I think I should be better than--than dummy--if you will take me to New Zealand."
Half laughing, half crying, and wholly confused, she looks up into his astonished face with eyes so brimful of love and tenderness that they tell all her story. For just an instant his eyes meet hers. Then, with a smothered exclamation, he draws her to him--and--in fact smothers the exclamation.
"I am so glad you've lost your money," she sobs, hiding her face, as soon as she can, upon his shoulder. "I should not have done at all--for you--in London, Charley."
There let us leave her. But no, another is less merciful. Neither of them hears the door open or sees Agnes' face appear at it. But she both sees and hears, and says very distinctly and clearly: