Part 89 (1/2)

'She is good-tempered, and she is natural--the two best things a woman can be.'

'Why not come down along with me and try your luck?'

'When do you go?'

'By the 10.30 train to-morrow. I shall arrive at Moate by four o'clock, and reach the castle to dinner.'

'They expect you?'

'Only so far, that I have telegraphed a line to say I'm going down to bid ”Good-bye” before I sail for Guatemala. I don't suspect they know where that is, but it's enough when they understand it is far away.'

'I'll go with you.'

'Will you really?'

'I will. I'll not say on such an errand as your own, because that requires a second thought or two; but I'll reconnoitre, Master Cecil, I'll reconnoitre.'

'I suppose you know there is no money.'

'I should think money most unlikely in such a quarter; and it's better she should have none than a small fortune. I'm an old whist-player, and when I play dummy, there's nothing I hate more than to see two or three small trumps in my partner's hand.'

'I imagine you'll not be distressed in that way here.'

'I've got enough to come through with; that is, the thing can be done if there be no extravagances.'

'Does one want for more?' cried Walpole theatrically.

'I don't know that. If it were only ask and have, I should like to be tempted.'

'I have no such ambition. I firmly believe that the moderate limits a man sets to his daily wants const.i.tute the real liberty of his intellect and his intellectual nature.'

'Perhaps I've no intellectual nature, then,' growled out Lockwood, 'for I know how I should like to spend fifteen thousand a year. I suppose I shall have to live on as many hundreds.'

'It can be done.'

'Perhaps it may. Have another weed?'

'No. I told you already I have begun a tobacco reformation.'

'Does she object to the pipe?'

'I cannot tell you. The fact is, Lockwood, my future and its fortunes are just as uncertain as your own. This day week will probably have decided the destiny of each of us.'

'To our success, then!' cried the major, filling both their gla.s.ses.

'To our success!' said Walpole, as he drained his, and placed it upside down on the table.

CHAPTER LXIX