"Well, but, Reg, consider; you've got no money."
"I've got five thousand pounds. If a man can't make his way upon that he must be a poor stick."
"You would go abroad with it and dig, and take your wife with you—to wash and cook."
"We would do something with the money here. You should stay in London, Rosie."
"Yes. In a suburban villa, at Shepherd's Bush, perhaps. No, Reg, when I marry, if ever I do—I am in no hurry—I will step out of this room into one exactly like it." The room was a splendid drawing-room in Palace Gardens, splendidly furnished. "I shall have my footmen and my carriage, and I shall—"
"Rosie, give me the right to earn all these things for you!" the young man cried impetuously.
"You can only earn them for me by the time you have one foot in the grave. Hadn't I better in the meantime marry some old gentleman with his one foot in the grave, so as to be ready for you against the time when you come home? In two or three years the other foot I dare say would slide into the grave as well."
"You laugh at my trouble. You feel nothing."
"If the pater would part—but he won't—he says he wants all his money for himself, and that I've got to marry well. Besides, Reg"—here her face clouded and she lowered her voice—"there are times when he looks anxious. We didn't always live in Palace Gardens. Suppose we should lose it all as quickly as we got it? Oh!" she shivered and trembled. "No, I will never, never marry a poor man. Get rich, my dear boy, and you may aspire even to the valuable possession of this heartless heand."
She held it out. He took it, pressed it, stooped and kissed her. Then he dropped her hand and walked quickly out of the room.