Part 84

"For both!"

"Would it not be better that she should decide what is proper for her?"

"Proper for me, then."

"Based on your peculiar notion of relative wealth between husband and wife--without regard to what she may think on the subject. In other words, have you any right to decline the risk, if she is willing to undertake it?"

"The risk is mine, not hers. She has the money. Her income, for three months, about equals my entire fortune."

"Can't you forget her fortune?"

"And live at the rate of pretty near two hundred thousand dollars a year?" Croyden laughed. "Could you?"

"I think I could, if I loved the girl."

"And suffer in your self-respect forever after?"

"There is where we differ. You're inclined to be hyper-critical. If you play your part, you won't lose your self-respect."

"It is a trifle difficult to do--to play my part, when all the world is saying, 'he married her for her money,' and shows me scant regard in consequence."

"Why the devil need you care what the world says!"

"I don't!"

"What?" Macloud exclaimed.

"I don't--the world may go hang. But the question is, how long can the man retain the woman's esteem, with such a handicap."

"Ah! that is easy! so long as he retains her love."

"Rather an uncertain quantity."

"It depends entirely on yourself.--If you start with it, you can hold it, if you take the trouble to try."

"You're a strong partisan!" Croyden laughed, as they entered Clarendon.

"And what are you?" Macloud returned.

"Just what I should like to know----"

"Well, I'll tell you what you are if you don't marry Elaine Cavendish," Macloud interrupted--"You're an unmitigated fool!"

"Assuming that Miss Cavendish would marry me."

"You're not likely to marry her, otherwise," retorted Macloud, as he went up the stairs. On the landing he halted and looked down at Croyden in the hall below. "And if you don't take your chance, the chance she has deliberately offered you by coming to Hampton, you are worse than----" and, with an expressive gesture, he resumed the ascent.

"How do you know she came down here just for that purpose?" Croyden called.

But all that came back in answer, as Macloud went down the hall and into his room, was the whistled air from a popular opera, then running in the Metropolis.

"Ev'ry little movement has a meaning all its own, Ev'ry thought and action----"

The door slammed--the music ceased.