mean, really, Francis?"

"I mean what I say: I will pay every debt you have, and give you a
charming wife with a fortune."

Lord Tancred got up and walked about the room. He was a perfectly
natural creature, stolid and calm as those of his race, disciplined and
deliberate in moments of danger or difficulty; yet he never lived under
self-conscious control as the financier did. He was rather moved now,
and so he walked about. He was with a friend, and it was not the moment
to have to bother over disguising his feelings.

"Oh, it is nonsense, Francis; I could not do it. I have knocked about
the world as you know, and, since you are aware of everything about me,
you say, you have probably heard some of my likings--and dislikings. I
never go after a woman unless she attracts me, and I would never marry
one of them unless I were madly in love with her, whether she had money
or no; though I believe I would hate a wife with money, in any
case--she'd be saying like the American lady of poor Darrowood: 'It's my
motor and you can't have it to-day.'"

"You would marry a woman then--if you were in love, in spite of
everything?" Francis Markrute asked.

"Probably, but I have never been really in love; have you? It is all
story-book stuff--that almighty passion, I expect. They none of them
matter very much after a while, do they, old boy?"

"I have understood it is possible for a woman to matter," the financier
said and he drew in his lips.