However, since she prefers
Hope, there's no more to be said on that score. I therefore will
not make the offer I came here to make."
"An offer, sir?"
"Yes! I fancied that you loved Lucy and were broken-hearted by
the news of her engagement to Hope. I therefore intended to ask
you to give me, or rather lend me, five hundred pounds on
condition that I helped you to--"
"Stop, Professor," said Random, coloring, "I should never have
bought Miss Kendal as my wife on those terms."
"Of course! of course! and--as I say--there is no more to be
said. I shall therefore agree to Lucy's engagement to Hope"--
Braddock carefully omitted to say that he had already agreed and
had been paid one thousand pounds to agree--"and will
congratulate you when you lead Donna Inez to the altar."
"I never said anything about Donna Inez, Professor Braddock."
"Of course not: modern reticence. However, I can see through a
brick wall as well as most people. I understand, so let us drop
the subject, my boy. And this five hundred pounds--"
"I cannot lend it to you, Professor. The fact is, I lost heaps
of coin at Monte Carlo, and am not in a position to--"
"Very good, let us shelve that also," said Braddock with apparent
heartiness, although he was really very angry at his failure.
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