“Is he so very much in love with her?”
Mme. Léopold gave an imperceptible start, and put her handkerchief to her mouth with a little cough; but the pantomime was lost on her companion, who was watching Pearl and observing mentally, “She is not in love with him, at any rate.” The brown eyes were sending forth sparks of merriment, and looked as if they were on the point of exploding outright with fun.
“My son is the very soul of honor,” Mme. Léopold went on to explain. “Before doing anything that could in the faintest degree compromise Mlle. Pearl, it was necessary for me to arrange all the essentials; and, as an old and valued friend of the family, I thought you would be, of all others, the person to help me in this. Let us, therefore, come to the point at once in all simplicity. What is her dot?”
“Her dot! Good gracious! how should I know?”
“Not, perhaps, the exact sum, but you surely must know à-peu-près, intimate as you are.”
“I have not the remotest idea on the subject. I never heard that she had a dot at all. Now you mention it, I should think it highly probable she had not. But if your son be really attached to her, that—”
“Bonté divine! No dot! A man of Col. Redacre’s position not give his daughter a dot! You are surely not serious?”
“Indeed I am. He has two sons to provide for, and in England the sons come first; the daughters are provided for by their husbands. Your son being an only son and so well off, it does not—”
“But his sons will have a carrière; and besides there is an estate that is to come to the eldest, I understand. Then there is the mother’s fortune to be divided amongst the younger children. Surely the girls’ dot will come out of that?”
“You seem to be much better informed about the family affairs than I am,” said Mrs. Monteagle. “I know nothing about Mrs. Redacre’s fortune; but, now you mention it, I dare say it will be divided amongst the younger ones. In any case I should think your son ran no risk in trusting all that in Col. Redacre’s hands.”