“I cannot think that he should want you to go with him.” Then there was again a pause. “Is it because he loves you?”
“Not that, papa.”
“Why then should he burden himself with a companion? His money, whatever he has, would go further without such impediment.”
“Perhaps he thinks, papa, that while I am with him he has a hold upon you.”
“He shall have a stronger hold by leaving you. What is he to gain? If I could only know his price.”
“Ask him, papa.”
“I do not even know how I am to speak to him again.”
Then again there was a pause. “Papa,” she said after a while, “I have done it myself. Let me go. You will still have Everett. And it may be that after a time I shall come back to you. He will not kill me, and it may be that I shall not die.”
“By God!” said Mr. Wharton, rising from his chair suddenly, “if there were money to be made by it, I believe that he would murder you without scruple.” Thus it was that within eighteen months of her marriage the father spoke to his daughter of her husband.
“What am I to take with me?” she said to her husband a few days later.
“You had better ask your father.”
“Why should I ask him, Ferdinand? How should he know?”
“And how should I?”
“I should have thought that you would interest yourself about it.”
“Upon my word I have enough to interest me just at present, without thinking of your finery. I suppose you mean what clothes you should have?”
“I was not thinking of myself only.”
“You need think of nothing else. Ask him what he pleases to allow you to spend, and then I will tell you what to get.”
“I will never ask him for anything, Ferdinand.”
“Then you may go without anything. You might as well do it at once, for you will have to do it sooner or later. Or, if you please, go to his tradesmen and say nothing to him about it. They will give you credit. You see how it is, my dear. He has cheated me in a most rascally manner. He has allowed me to marry his daughter, and because I did not make a bargain with him as another man would have done, he denies me the fortune I had a right to expect with you. You know that the Israelites despoiled the Egyptians, and it was taken as a merit on their part. Your father is an Egyptian to me, and I will despoil him. You can tell him that I say so if you please.”
And so the days went on till the first week of February had passed, and Parliament had met. Both Lopez and his wife were still living in Manchester Square. Not another word had been said as to that notice to quit, nor an allusion made to it. It was supposed to be a settled thing that Lopez was to start with his wife for Guatemala in the first week in April. Mr. Wharton had himself felt that difficulty as to his daughter’s outfit, and had told her that she might get whatever it pleased her on his credit. “For yourself, my dear.”
“Papa, I will get nothing till he bids me.”
“But you can’t go across the world without anything. What are you to do in such a place as that unless you have the things you want?”
“What do poor people do who have to go? What should I do if you had cast me off because of my disobedience?”
“But I have not cast you off.”
“Tell him that you will give him so much, and then, if he bids me, I will spend it.”
“Let it be so. I will tell him.”
Upon that Mr. Wharton did speak to his son-in-law;—coming upon him suddenly one morning in the dining-room. “Emily will want an outfit if she is to go to this place.”
“Like other people she wants many things that she cannot get.”
“I will tell my tradesmen to furnish her with what she wants, up to—well—suppose I say £200. I have spoken to her and she wants your sanction.”
“My sanction for spending your money? She can have that very quickly.”
“You can tell her so;—or I will do so.”
Upon that Mr. Wharton was going, but Lopez stopped him. It was now essential that the money for the shares in the San Juan mine should be paid up, and his father-in-law’s pocket was still the source from which the enterprising son-in-law hoped to procure it. Lopez had fully made up his mind to demand it, and thought that the time had now come. And he was resolved that he would not ask it as a favour on bended knee. He was beginning to feel his own power, and trusted that he might prevail by other means than begging. “Mr. Wharton,” he said, “you and I have not been very good friends lately.”
“No, indeed.”
“There was a time—a very short time—during which I thought that we might hit it off together, and I did my best. You do not, I fancy, like men of my class.”
“Well;—well! You had better go on if there be anything to say.”
“I have much to say, and I will go on. You are a rich man, and I am your son-in-law.” Mr. Wharton put his left hand up to his forehead, brushing the few hairs back from his head, but he said nothing. “Had I received from you during the last most vital year that assistance which I think I had a right to expect, I also might have been a rich man now. It is no good going back to that.” Then he paused, but still Mr. Wharton said nothing. “Now you know what has come to me and to your daughter. We are to be expatriated.”
“Is that my fault?”
“I think it is,
