“Nothing of the sort,” cried Lady Jane. “Do you know Charlie Somers is a cousin of mine, Dr. Burnet?”
“That,” said the doctor, “though an inestimable advantage, would not save him from having had--various things said about him, Lady Jane.”
“No,” she said with a laugh. “I acknowledge it. Various things have been said of him. The reason given was simply ludicrous. I don’t know if Charlie invented it--but I don’t think he was clever enough to invent it. It was something about putting money down pound for pound, or shilling for shilling, or some nonsense, and that he would give Stella to nobody that couldn’t do that. On the face of it that is folly, you know.”
“I am not so sure that it is folly. I have heard him say something of the kind; meaning, I suppose, that any son-in-law he would accept would have to be as wealthy as himself.”
“But that is absolute madness, Dr. Burnet! Good heavens! who that was as rich as old Tredgold could desire to be old Tredgold’s son-in-law? It is against all reason. A man might forgive to the girls who are so nice in themselves that they had such a father; but what object could one as rich as himself---- Oh! it is sheer idiocy, you know.”
“Not to him; and he, after all, is the person most concerned,” said Dr. Burnet, with his head cast down and rather a dejected look about him altogether. The thought was not cheerful to himself any more than to Lady Jane, and as a matter of fact he had not realised it before.
“But it cannot be,” she cried, “it cannot be; it is out of the question. Oh, you are a man of resource; you must find out some way to baffle this old curmudgeon. There must, there must,” she exclaimed, “be some way out of it, if you care to try.”
“Trying will not invent thousands of pounds, alas! nor can the man who has the greatest fund of resource but no money do it anyhow,” said Dr. Burnet sententiously. “There may be a dodge----”
“That is what I meant. There must be a dodge to--to get you out of it,” she cried.
“It is possible that the man whose existence you divine might not care to get a wife--if she would have him to begin with--by a dodge, Lady Jane.”
“Oh, rubbish!” cried the great lady, “we are not so high-minded as all that. I am of opinion that in that way anything, everything can be done. Charlie Somers is a fool and Stella another; but to a sensible pair with an understanding between them and plenty of time to work--and an old sick man,” Lady Jane laid an involuntary emphasis on the word sick--then stopped and reddened visibly, though her countenance was rather weather-beaten and did not easily show.