"Now we are becoming business-like, which is much better than being personal," said the earl, placably. "A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer. I have no present intention of getting married; but still, more remote contingencies than that have come to pass in the history of the world."
"A--h! then it is true that this creature has designs on you."
"If by 'this creature' your ladyship means Miss Tebbuts, I say emphatically no. Allow me to add that Miss Tebbuts is a lady, and incapable of forming designs against any man."
"A lady, forsooth! Her father, or her brother, or somebody connected with her, was a common quack."
"Her brother-in-law created a pill and made a fortune. Had he been a great captain, and killed ten thousand men, a grateful nation would have erected a statue to him; but seeing that he only invented a pill, and probably saved ten thousand lives, society votes him vulgar, and passes him by on the other side. What a strange, topsy-turvy state of things we have got to at the end of our nineteen centuries of practical religion!"
The countess looked mutely at Flicker, but her look plainly said, "Surely this fellow must be crazy." Mr. Flicker responded by a melancholy shake of the head. "Are we to infer from this rigmarole, sir, that the report is nothing more than a foolish canard, and that you have no more intention of getting married than I have?"
"Well, I will hardly venture to go as far as that. You see, aunt, Miss Tebbuts is a very charming lady, and her charms are enhanced by a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. At five per cent. that fortune would yield an annual income of one thousand pounds."
"Yes, but there would be two of you to keep out of it. As the case stands now, you have six hundred a year, and only yourself to keep."
"I assure your ladyship that Miss Tebbuts's tastes are of the most simple and inexpensive kind. She is one of those admirable women who would live on a hundred a year and save fifty of it."
"Have you no more respect for your family, sir, than to marry a quack doctor's sister?"