“Come back to what we were talking about.”
“Well, I have said that if you love her I believe you are quite right to marry her. But do you love her?”
“Yes, I do; how many times more do you want me to say I do?”
“Of _course_ if you are going to be rude--”
“No--you understand what I mean, don't you? I am very fond of the missis; if I weren't I shouldn't marry, that goes without saying, but one likes to have things settled. I have been with her now more thantwo years. I've thought it out. There's nothing like having things settled. I'm sure I'm right.”
The young men looked at each other in silence--Frank quite at a loss; he could nowise enter into the feelings of a man whom an undue sense of order and regularity compelled to marry his mistress, as it did to waste half his life in copying letters and making entries in a diary.
“Then why did you consult me?” he said, for he came to the point sharply when his brain was not muddled with sentiment.
“I am not heir to an entailed estate, like you.”
“I am not heir to an entailed estate. Mount Rorke might marry to-morrow.”
“He is not likely to do that. It is an understood thing that you are heir. My father might cut me off with a shilling if he were to hear I had married without his consent, and I should be left with the few hundreds which I draw out of the distillery, a poor man all my life.”
“If that is so, why marry? You are not in love with her--at least not what I should call being in love.”
“No, I can't, unless you mean that you are down with marriage fever.”
“I have considered the matter carefully, and am convinced I am right,” he answered, looking at Frank as if he would say, but didn't dare, “don't let's talk about it any more, it only distresses me.” “The marriage must be kept a secret. If my father were to hear of it I should be ruined, whereas if Mary will consent to go on living as we are living now, one of these days she will be a rich woman. I daresay my share of his money will come to at least fifteen hundred a year, and then I shall be able to recompense her for the years she has waited for it. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly. The only thing I don't see is how I am to influence her. You've no doubt told her and fully explained to her what the consequences would be if you were to publish the banns.”