How eager Lady Carbury was that her son should at once go in form to Marie's father and make his proposition may be easily understood. 'My dear Felix,' she said, standing over his bedside a little before noon, 'pray don't put it off; you don't know how many slips there may be between the cup and the lip.'
'It's everything to get him in a good humour,' pleaded Sir Felix.
'But the young lady will feel that she is ill-used.'
'There's no fear of that; she's all right. What am I to say to him about money? That's the question.'
'I shouldn't think of dictating anything, Felix.'
'Nidderdale, when he was on before, stipulated for a certain sum down; or his father did for him. So much cash was to be paid over before the ceremony, and it only went off because Nidderdale wanted the money to do what he liked with.'
'You wouldn't mind having it settled?'
'No;--I'd consent to that on condition that the money was paid down, and the income insured to me,--say £7,000 or £8,000 a year. I wouldn't do it for less, mother; it wouldn't be worth while.'
'But you have nothing left of your own.'
'I've got a throat that I can cut, and brains that I can blow out,' said the son, using an argument which he conceived might be efficacious with his mother; though, had she known him, she might have been sure that no man lived less likely to cut his own throat or blow out his own brains.
'Oh, Felix! how brutal it is to speak to me in that way.'
'It may be brutal; but you know, mother, business is business. You want me to marry this girl because of her money.'
'You want to marry her yourself.'
'I'm quite a philosopher about it. I want her money; and when one wants money, one should make up one's mind how much or how little one means to take,--and whether one is sure to get it.'
'I don't think there can be any doubt.'
'If I were to marry her, and if the money wasn't there, it would be very like cutting my throat then, mother. If a man plays and loses, he can play again and perhaps win; but when a fellow goes in for an heiress, and gets the wife without the money, he feels a little hampered you know.'
'Of course he'd pay the money first.'
'It's very well to say that. Of course he ought; but it would be rather awkward to refuse to go into church after everything had been arranged because the money hadn't been paid over. He's so clever, that he'd contrive that a man shouldn't know whether the money had been paid or not. You can't carry £10,000 a year about in your pocket, you know. If you'll go, mother, perhaps I might think of getting up.'