"But if it was sure to come?"

"Ah, then indeed,--with you! I have just said how nice it would be."

"Have you ever been at Ostend?" she asked, suddenly.

"Ostend. Oh, yes. There was a man there who used to cheat horribly at ecarte. He did me out of nearly a hundred pounds one night."

"But there's a clergyman there, I'm told."

"I don't think this man was in orders. But he might have been.

Parsons come out in so many shapes! This man called himself a count.

It was seven years ago."

"I am speaking of to-day."

"I've not been there since."

"Would you like to go there,--with me?"

"It isn't a nice sort of place, I should say, for a honeymoon. But you shall choose. When we are married you shall go where you like."

"To be married!" she exclaimed.

"Married at Ostend! Would your mother like that?"

"Mother! Oh, dear!"

"I'll be shot if I know what you're after, Gertrude. If you've got anything to say you'd better speak out. I want to go up to the house now."

They had now taken one or two turns between the lodge and a point in the road from which the house could be observed, and at which Tom could still be seen wandering about, thinking no doubt of Ayala. Here Frank stopped as though determined not to turn to the lodge again. It was wonderful to Gertrude that he should not have understood what she had already said. When he talked of her mother going with them to the Ostend marriage she was almost beside herself. This lover of hers was a man of the world and must have heard of elopements. But now had come a time in which she must be plain, unless she made up her mind to abandon her plan altogether. "Frank," she said, "if you were to run away with me, then we could be married at Ostend."

"Run away with you!"

"It wouldn't be the first time that such a thing has been done."

"The commonest thing in the world, my dear, when a girl has got her money in her own hands. Nothing I should like so much."

"Money! It's always money. It's nothing but the money, I believe."

"That's unkind, Gertrude."

"Ain't you unkind? You won't do anything I ask."

"My darling, that hashed mutton and those baked potatoes are too clear before my eyes."

"You think of nothing, I believe, but your dinner."

"I think, unfortunately, of a great many other things. Hashed mutton is simply symbolical. Under the head of hashed mutton I include poor lodgings, growlers when we get ourselves asked to eat a dinner at somebody's table, limited washing-bills, table-napkins rolled up in their dirt every day for a week, antimaca.s.sars to save the backs of the chairs, a picture of you darning my socks while I am reading a newspaper hired at a halfpenny from the public-house round the corner, a pint of beer in the pewter between us,--and perhaps two babies in one cradle because we can't afford to buy a second."

"Don't, Sir."

"In such an emergency I am bound to give you the advantage both of my experience and imagination."

"Experience!"

"Not about the cradles! That is imagination. My darling, it won't do.

You and I have not been brought up to make ourselves happy on a very limited income."

"Papa would be sure to give us the money," she said, eagerly.

"In such a matter as this, where your happiness is concerned, my dear, I will trust no one."

"My happiness!"

"Yes, my dear, your happiness! I am quite willing to own the truth. I am not fitted to make you happy, if I were put upon the hashed mutton regime as I have described to you. I will not run the risk,--for your sake."

"For your own, you mean," she said.

"Nor for my own, if you wish me to add that also."

Then they walked up towards the house for some little way in silence.

"What is it you intend, then?" she asked.

"I will ask your father once again."

"He will simply turn you out of the house," she said. Upon this he shrugged his shoulders, and they walked on to the hall-door in silence.

Sir Thomas was not at Merle Park, nor was he expected home that evening. Frank Houston could only therefore ask for Lady Tringle, and her he saw together with Mr. and Mrs. Traffick. In presence of them all nothing could be said of love affairs; and, after sitting for half-an-hour, during which he was not entertained with much cordiality, he took his leave, saying that he would do himself the honour of calling on Sir Thomas in the City. While he was in the drawing-room Gertrude did not appear. She had retired to her room, and was there resolving that Frank Houston was not such a lover as would justify a girl in breaking her heart for him.

And Frank as he went to town brought his mind to the same way of thinking. The girl wanted something romantic to be done, and he was not disposed to do anything romantic for her. He was not in the least angry with her, acknowledging to himself that she had quite as much a right to her way of looking at things as he had to his. But he felt almost sure that the Tringle alliance must be regarded as impossible.

If so, should he look out for another heiress, or endeavour to enjoy life, stretching out his little income as far as might be possible;--or should he a.s.sume altogether a new character, make a hero of himself, and ask Imogene Docimer to share with him a little cottage, in whatever might be the cheapest spot to be found in the civilised parts of Europe? If it was to be hashed mutton and a united cradle, he would prefer Imogene Docimer to Gertrude Tringle for his companion.

But there was still open to him the one further chance with Sir Thomas; and this chance he could try with the comfortable feeling that he might be almost indifferent as to what Sir Thomas might say.

To be prepared for either lot is very self-a.s.suring when any matter of difficulty has to be taken in hand. On arriving at the house in Lombard Street he soon found himself ushered once more into Sir Thomas's presence. "Well, Mr. Houston, what can I do for you to-day?"

asked the man of business, with a pleasant smile.

"It is the old story, Sir Thomas."

"Don't you think, Mr. Houston, that there is something,--a little,--unmanly shall I call it, in coming so often about the same thing?"

"No, Sir Thomas, I do not. I think my conduct has been manly throughout."

"Weak, perhaps, would have been a better word. I do not wish to be uncourteous, and I will therefore withdraw unmanly. Is it not weak to encounter so many refusals on the same subject?"

"I should feel myself to have been very strong if after so many refusals I were to be successful at last."

"There is not the least chance of it."

"Why should there be no chance if your daughter's happiness depends upon it?"