“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.
“Look here! I can’t help telling you, Pen,” he said. “Ever since the night we dined there, I’m so fond of that girl, that I think I shall die if I don’t get her. I feel as if I should go mad sometimes. I can’t stand it, Pen. I couldn’t bear to hear you talking about her, just now, about marrying her only because she’s money. Ah, Pen! that ain’t the question in marrying. I’d bet anything it ain’t. Talking about money and such a girl as that, it’s—it’s—what-d’ye-call-’em—you know what I mean—I ain’t good at talking—sacrilege, then. If she’d have me, I’d take and sweep a crossing, that I would!”
“Poor Fo! I don’t think that would tempt her,” Pen said, eyeing his friend with a great deal of real good-nature and pity. “She is not a girl for love and a cottage.”
“She ought to be a duchess, I know that very well, and I know she wouldn’t take me unless I could make her a great place in the world—for I ain’t good for anything myself much—I ain’t clever and that sort of thing,” Foker said sadly. “If I had all the diamonds that all the duchesses and marchionesses had on to-night, wouldn’t I put ’em in her lap? But what’s the use of talking? I’m booked for another race. It’s that kills me, Pen. I can’t get out of it; though I die, I can’t get out of it. And though my cousin’s a nice girl, and I like her very well, and that, yet I hadn’t seen this one when our Governors settled that matter between us. And when you talked, just now, about her doing very well, and about her having money enough for both of you, I thought to myself it isn’t money or mere liking a girl, that ought to be enough to make a fellow marry. He may marry, and find he likes somebody else better. All the money in the world won’t make you happy then. Look at me; I’ve plenty of money, or shall have out of the mash-tubs, as you call ’em. My Governor thought he’d made it all right for me in settling my marriage with my cousin. I tell you it won’t do; and when Lady Ann has got her husband, it won’t be happy for either of us, and she’ll have the most miserable beggar in town.”
“Poor old fellow!” Pen said, with rather a cheap magnanimity, “I wish I could help you. I had no idea of this, and that you were so wild about the girl. Do you think she would have you without your money? No. Do you think your father would agree to break off your engagement with your cousin? You know him very well, and that he would cast you off rather than do so.”
The unhappy Foker only groaned a reply, flinging himself prostrate on a sofa, face forwards, his head in his hands.
“As for my affair,” Pen went on, “my dear fellow, if I had thought matters were so critical with you, at least I would not have pained you by choosing you as my confidant. And my business is not serious, at least not as yet. I have not spoken a word about it to Miss Amory. Very likely she would not have me if I asked her. Only I have had a great deal of talk about it with my uncle, who says that the match might be an eligible one for me. I’m ambitious and I’m poor. And it appears Lady Clavering will give her a good deal of money, and Sir Francis might be got to never mind the rest. Nothing is settled, Harry. They are going out of town directly. I promise you I won’t ask her before she goes. There’s no hurry: there’s time for everybody. But, suppose you got her, Foker. Remember what you said about marriages just now, and the misery of a man who doesn’t care for his wife; and what sort of a wife would you have who didn’t care for her husband?”
“But she would care for me,” said Foker, from his sofa—“that is, I think she would. Last night only, as we were dancing, she said——”