"You have your pay, I suppose?" says Molly, doubtfully. "Is that much?"
"Very handsome," replies he, laughing; "a lieutenant's pay generally is. But I have something besides that; about as much as most fellows would spend on their stabling. I have precisely five hundred and fifty pounds a year, neither more nor less, and I owe two hundred pounds. Does not that sound tempting? The two hundred pounds I owe don't count, because the governor will pay up that; he always does in the long run; and I haven't asked him for anything out of the way now for fully eight months." He says this with a full consciousness of his own virtue.
"I call five hundred and fifty pounds a year a great deal," says Molly, with a faint ring of disappointment in her tone. "I fancied you downright poor from what you said. Why, you might marry to-morrow morning on that."
"So I might," agrees he, eagerly; "and so I will. That is, not to-morrow, exactly, but as soon as ever I can."
"Perhaps you will," says Molly, slowly; "but, if so, it will not be me you will marry. Bear that in mind. No, we won't argue the matter: as far as I am concerned it doesn't admit of argument." Then recurring to the former topic: "Why, John has only seven hundred pounds, and he has all the children and Letitia and me to provide for, and he keeps Lovat—that is the eldest boy—at a very good school as well. How could you call yourself poor, with five hundred pounds a year?"
"It ought to be six hundred and fifty pounds; but I thought it a pity to burden myself with superfluous wealth in my palmy days, so I got rid of it," says he, laughing.
"Gambling?"
"Well, yes, I suppose so."
"Cards?"
"No, horses. It was in India—stupid part, you know, and nothing to do. Potts suggested military races, and we all caught at it. And—and I didn't have much luck, you know," winds up Luttrell, ingenuously.
"I don't like that young man," says Molly, severely. "You are always talking of him, and he is my idea of a ne'er-do-weel. Your Mr. Potts seems never to be out of mischief. He is the head and front of every offense."
"Are you talking of Potts?" says her lover, in grieved amazement. "A better fellow never stepped. Nothing underhand about Potts. When you see him you will agree with me."
"I will not. I can see him in my mind's eye already. I know he is tall, and dark, and insinuating, and, in fact, a Mephistopheles."
Luttrell roars.
"Oh, if you could but see Potts!" he says. "He is the best fellow in the world, but—— He ought to be called Rufus: his hair is red, his face is red, his nose is red, he is all red," finishes Tedcastle, with a keen enjoyment of his friend's misfortunes.
"Poor man," kindly; "I forgive him his small sins; he must be sufficiently punished by his ugliness. Did you like being in India?"
"Pretty well. At times it was rather slow, and our regiment has somehow gone to the dogs of late. No end of underbred fellows have joined, with quite too much the linen-draper about them to be tolerated."
"How sad! Your candor amazes me. I thought every soldier made it a point to be enthusiastic over his brother soldiers, whether by being so he lied or not."
"Then look upon me as an exception. The fact is, I grew rather discontented about three years ago when my greatest chum sold out and got married. You have no idea how lost a fellow feels when that happens. But for Potts I might have succumbed."
"Potts! what a sweet name it is!" says Molly, mischievously.
"What's in a name?" with a laugh. "He was generally called Mrs. Luttrell, we were so much together: so his own didn't matter. But I missed Penthony Stafford awfully."
"And Mrs. Penthony, did you like her?"
"Lady Stafford, you mean? Penthony is a baronet. Yes, I like her immensely, and the whole affair was so peculiar. You won't believe me when I tell you that, though they have now been married for three years, her husband has never seen her."
"But that would be impossible."
"It is a fact for all that. Shall I tell you the story? Most people know it by this, I think: so I am breaking no faith by telling it to you."
"Never mind whether you are or not," says Molly: "I must and will hear it now."
"Well, to begin with, you must understand that she and her husband are first cousins. Have you mastered that fact?"
"Though not particularly gifted, I think I have. I rather flatter myself I could master more than that," says Molly, significantly, giving his ear a pinch, short but sharp.
"She is also a cousin of mine, though not so near. Well, about three years ago, when she was only Cecil Hargrave, and extremely poor, an uncle of theirs died, leaving his entire property, which was very considerable, between them, on the condition that they should marry each other. If they refused, it was to go to a lunatic asylum, or a refuge for dogs, or something equally uninteresting."
"He would have made a very successful lunatic himself, it seems to me. What a terrible condition!"
"Now, up to this they had been utter strangers to each other, had never even been face to face, and being told they must marry whether they liked it or not, or lose the money, they of course on the spot conceived an undying hatred for each other. Penthony even refused to see his possible wife, when urged to do so, and Cecil, on her part, quite as strenuously opposed a meeting. Still, they could not make up their minds to let such a good property slip through their fingers."
"It was hard."
"Things dragged on so for three months, and then, Cecil, being a woman, was naturally the one to see a way out of it. She wrote to Sir Penthony saying, if he would sign a deed giving her a third of the money, and promising never to claim her as his wife, or interfere with her in any way, beyond having the marriage ceremony read between them, she would marry him."
"And he?" asks Molly, eagerly, bending forward in her excitement.
"Why, he agreed, of course. What was it to him? he had never seen her, and had no wish to make her acquaintance. The document was signed, the license was procured. On the morning of the wedding, he looked up a best man, and went down to the country, saw nothing of his bride until a few minutes before the service began, when she entered the room covered with so thick a veil that he saw quite as little of her then, was married, made his best bow to the new Lady Stafford, and immediately returning to town, set out a few days later for a foreign tour, which has lasted ever since. Now, is not that a thrilling romance, and have I not described it graphically?"
"The 'Polite Story-teller' sinks into insignificance beside you: such a flow of language deserves a better audience. But really, Teddy, I never heard so extraordinary a story. To marry a woman, and never have the curiosity to raise her veil to see whether she was ugly or pretty! It is inconceivable! He must be made of ice."
"He is warm-hearted, and one of the jolliest fellows you could meet. Curiously enough, from a letter he wrote me just before starting he gave me the impression that he believed his wife to be not only plain, but vulgar in appearance."
"And is she?"
"She is positively lovely. Rather small, perhaps, but exquisitely fair, with large laughing blue eyes, and the most fetching manner. If he had raised her veil, I don't believe he would ever have gone abroad to cultivate the dusky nigger."
"What became of her—'poor maid forlorn?'"
"She gave up 'milking the cow with the crumpled horn,' and the country generally, and came up to London, where she took a house, went into society, and was the rage all last season."
"Why did you not tell him how pretty she was?" impatiently.
"Because I was in Ireland at the time on leave, and heard nothing of it until I received that letter telling of the marriage and his departure. I was thunderstruck,