“I’m sure there is none.”
“I’d give half I’ve got in all the world,” said the wretched man, “just to get it out of my head. I know what it will come to.” Though he paused, Lady Chiltern could ask no question respecting Mr. Spooner’s future prospects. “It’ll be two bottles of champagne at dinner, and two bottles of claret afterwards, every day. I only hope she’ll know that she did it. Goodbye, Lady Chiltern. I thought that perhaps you’d have helped me.”
“I cannot help you.”
“Goodbye.” So he went down to his trap, and drove himself violently home—without, however, achieving the ruin which he desired. Let us hope that as time cures his wound that threat as to increased consumption of wine may fall to the ground unfulfilled.
In the meantime Gerard Maule had arrived at Matching Priory.
“We have quarrelled,” Adelaide had said when the Duchess told her that her lover was to come. “Then you had better make it up again,” the Duchess had answered—and there had been an end of it. Nothing more was done; no arrangement was made, and Adelaide was left to meet the man as best she might. The quarrel to her had been as the disruption of the heavens. She had declared to herself that she would bear it; but the misfortune to be borne was a broken world falling about her own ears. She had thought of a nunnery, of Ophelia among the water-lilies, and of an early deathbed. Then she had pictured to herself the somewhat ascetic and very laborious life of an old maiden lady whose only recreation fifty years hence should consist in looking at the portrait of him who had once been her lover. And now she was told that he was coming to Matching as though nothing had been the matter! She tried to think whether it was not her duty to have her things at once packed, and ask for a carriage to take her to the railway station. But she was in the house of her nearest relative—of him and also of her who were bound to see that things were right; and then there might be a more pleasureable existence than that which would have to depend on a photograph for its keenest delight. But how should she meet him? In what way should she address him? Should she ignore the quarrel, or recognize it, or take some milder course? She was half afraid of the Duchess, and could not ask for assistance. And the Duchess, though good-natured, seemed to her to be rough. There was nobody at Matching to whom she could say a word;—so she lived on, and trembled, and doubted from hour to hour whether the world would not come to an end.
The Duchess was rough, but she was very good-natured. She had contrived that the two lovers should be brought into the same house, and did not doubt at all but what they would be able to adjust their own little differences when they met. Her experiences of the world had certainly made her more alive to the material prospects than to the delicate aroma of a love adventure. She had been greatly knocked about herself, and the material prospects had come uppermost. But all that had happened to her had tended to open her hand to other people, and had enabled her to be good-natured with delight, even when she knew that her friends imposed upon her. She didn’t care much for Laurence Fitzgibbon; but when she was told that the lady with money would not consent to marry the aristocratic pauper except on condition that she should be received at Matching, the Duchess at once gave the invitation. And now, though she couldn’t go into the “fal-lallery,”—as she called it, to Madame Goesler—of settling a meeting between two young people who had fallen out, she worked hard till she accomplished something perhaps more important to their future happiness. “Plantagenet,” she said, “there can be no objection to your cousin having that money.”
“My dear!”
“Oh come; you must remember about Adelaide, and that young man who is coming here today.”
“You told me that Adelaide is to be married. I don’t know anything about the young man.”
“His name is Maule, and he is a gentleman, and all that. Some day when his father dies he’ll have a small property somewhere.”
“I hope he has a profession.”
“No, he has not. I told you all that before.”
“If he has nothing at all, Glencora, why did he ask a young lady to marry him?”
“Oh, dear; what’s the good of going into all that? He has got something. They’ll do immensely well, if you’ll only listen. She is your first cousin.”
“Of course she is,” said Plantagenet, lifting up his hand to his hair.
“And you are bound to do something for her.”
“No; I am not bound. But I’m very willing—if you wish it. Put the thing on a right footing.”
“I hate footings—that is, right footings. We can manage this without taking money out of your pocket.”
“My dear Glencora, if I am to give my cousin money I shall do so by putting my hand into my own pocket in preference to that of any other person.”
“Madame Goesler says that she’ll sign all the papers about the Duke’s legacy—the money, I mean—if she may be allowed to make it over to the Duke’s niece.”
“Of course Madame Goesler may do what she likes with her own. I cannot hinder her. But I would rather that you should not interfere. Twenty-five thousand pounds is a very serious sum of money.”
“You won’t take it.”
“Certainly not.”
“Nor will Madame Goesler; and therefore there can be no reason why these young people should not have it. Of course Adelaide being the Duke’s niece does
