"Are they so very mournful?"
"Sometimes. But mournful does not so well define their expression as pensive. Your heart is sometimes troubled."
"With the past," she rejoined quickly and eagerly. "My husband did not love me. He left me. When I became a widow I resolved to bury my sorrow and my life in some quiet obscure corner like Cliffegate. I have a little income, Arthur—why do you not ask me about it? Other men would."
"I hope you will not find me altogether like other men; though I hope I am no Pharisee."
"I have two hundred a year. It was left me by grandmamma. Her solicitor sends me fifty pounds every quarter. You may have it all, Arthur."
"Thanks, dear; and in return you shall have two thousand a year to spend with me."
"Is that your fortune?" she asked, opening her eyes.
I nodded, with a smile.
"How rich you are! But it is nice to have plenty of money, and I shan't love you the less for having it. No; many women would pretend that they would much rather have found you poor, that they might feel sure you knew you were loved only for yourself. Now I am glad you are rich; not because I care for your money, but because I know that such a fortune as yours must have enabled you to see life, and that your choice of me comes after an experience of the world. It will be a matured choice, so that I shall not be likely to lose you."
"Geraldine, you talk the language of wisdom, as the Turks say. I have seen life, and can promise you that my love is not the caprice of a greenhorn."