“Hope of our marriage, Dorise,” he said hoarsely. “How can I, without money, ever hope to make you my wife?”
“But you will have your father’s estate in due course, won’t you?” she asked quite innocently. “You always plead poverty. You are so like a man.”
“Ah! Dorise, I am really poor. You don’t understand—you can’t!”
“But I do,” she said. “You may have debts. Every man has them—tailor’s bills, restaurant bills, betting debts, jewellery debts. Oh! I know. I’ve heard all about these things from another. Well, if you have them, you’ll be able to settle them out of your father’s estate all in due course.”
“And if he has left me nothing?”
“Nothing!” exclaimed the handsome girl at his side. “What do you mean?”
“Well——” he said very slowly. “At present I have nothing—that’s all. That is why at Monte Carlo I suggested that—that——”
He did not conclude the sentence.
“I remember. You said that I had better marry George Sherrard—that thick-lipped ass. You said that because you are hard-up?”
“Yes. I am hard-up. Very hard-up. At present I am existing in an obscure lodging practically upon the charity of a man upon whom, so far as I can ascertain, I have no claim whatsoever.”