"I ain't? No, but she ave. I tell thee there is gold in store for me —not what you call money, nursed in the lap of luxury, and cradled on grains, and drinking in wealth from a thousand mash-tubs. What do you know about money? What is poverty to you, is splendor to the hardy son of the humble apothecary. You can't live without an establishment, and your houses in town and country. A snug little house somewhere off Belgravia, a brougham for my wife, a decent cook, and a fair bottle of wine for my friends at home sometimes; these simple necessaries suffice for me, my Foker." And here Pendennis began to look more serious. Without bantering further, Pen continued, "I've rather serious thoughts of settling and marrying. No man can get on in the world without some money at his back. You must have a certain stake to begin with, before you can go in and play the great game. Who knows that I'm not going to try, old fellow? Worse men than I have won at it. And as I have not got enough capital from my fathers, I must get some by my wife—that's all."
They were walking down Grosvenor-street, as they talked, or rather as Pen talked, in the selfish fullness of his heart; and Mr. Pen must have been too much occupied with his own affairs to remark the concern and agitation of his neighbor, for he continued, "We are no longer children, you know, you and I, Harry. Bah! the time of our romance has passed away. We don't marry for passion, but for prudence and for establishment. What do you take your cousin for? Because she is a nice girl, and an earl's daughter, and the old folks wish it, and that sort of thing."
"And you, Pendennis," asked Foker, "you ain't very fond of the girl—you're going to marry?"
Pen shrugged his shoulders. "Comme ça," said he; "I like her well enough. She's pretty enough; she's clever enough. I think she'll do very well. And she has got money enough—that's the great point. Psha! you know who she is, don't you? I thought you were sweet on her yourself one night when we dined with her mamma. It's little Amory."
"I—I thought so," Foker said; "and has she accepted you?"
"Not quite," Arthur replied, with a confident smile, which seemed to say, I have but to ask, and she comes to me that instant.
"Oh, not quite," said Foker; and he broke out with such a dreadful laugh, that Pen, for the first time, turned his thoughts from himself toward his companion, and was struck by the other's ghastly pale face.
"My dear fellow, Fo! what's the matter? You're ill," Pen said, in a tone of real concern.
"You think it was the Champagne at Gaunt House, don't you? It ain't that. Come in; let me talk to you for a minute. I'll tell you what it is. D—it, let me tell somebody," Foker said.
They were at Mr. Foker's door by this time, and, opening it, Harry walked with his friend into his apartments, which were situated in the back part of the house, and behind the family dining-room, where the elder Foker received his guests, surrounded by pictures of himself, his wife, his infant son on a donkey, and the late Earl of Gravesend in his robes as a peer. Foker and Pen passed by this chamber, now closed with death-like shutters, and entered into the young man's own quarters. Dusky streams of sunbeams were playing into that room, and lighting up poor Harry's gallery of dancing girls and opera nymphs with flickering illuminations.