I'll offer you a cigarette."
The cigarette was reluctantly offered, and accepted with a shrug.
"But you didn't come here merely to smoke, I dare say."
"Certainly not, sir. We do not often trouble each other, father; but
there are things about which I suppose we had better speak. I'm going
to be married!"
"To be married!" The tone in which Mr. Maule, senior, repeated the
words was much the same as might be used by any ordinary father if
his son expressed an intention of going into the shoe-black business.
"Yes, sir. It's a kind of thing men do sometimes."
"No doubt;--and it's a kind of thing that they sometimes repent of
having done."
"Let us hope for the best. It is too late at any rate to think about
that, and as it is to be done, I have come to tell you."
"Very well. I suppose you are right to tell me. Of course you know
that I can do nothing for you; and I don't suppose that you can do
anything for me. As far as your own welfare goes, if she has a large
fortune,--"
"She has no fortune."
"No fortune!"
"Two or three thousand pounds perhaps.
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