‘I am not aware that I’m in any awful scrape, so far.’
‘But you will be, when my aunt finds out what a wicked impostor you are.’
‘Her ladyship’s anger doesn’t matter two farthings to me. It’s her influence over you that I’m afraid of.’
‘Her influence over me!’
‘The lessons she is continually preaching—the maxims she is for ever dinning into your ears.’
‘Yes; I know she looks upon it as a sacred duty which I owe to Society that I should marry myself to the highest bidder.’
‘And you?’ asked the young man as he sat up, pushed back his hat, and gazed into the pretty face above him.
She was drawing figures aimlessly with the point of her sunshade in the gravel. For a moment or two she did not answer; then she broke out with an emphasis that was full of bitterness: ‘What would you have? What can you expect? From the day I left school, and even earlier than that, the one lesson that has been instilled into my mind is, that I must marry money—money. Even my mother—— But she is dead, and I will not speak of her. And since then, my aunt. I am a chattel—a piece of bric-à-brac in the matrimonial market, to be appraised, and depreciated, and finally knocked down to the first bidder who is prepared to make a handsome settlement. I hate myself when I think of it! I hate everybody!’ Sudden passionate tears sprang to her eyes; she dashed them away impatiently.
‘Not quite everybody, ma belle,’ said Mr Dulcimer as he possessed himself of one of her hands. ‘There is one way of escape that you wot of,’ he added in a lower voice.
She turned on him with a flash: ‘By marrying you, I suppose?’