"Just the point! just the point!" fretted Lady Blanchemain. "What's just
the point? Just the point that you aren't a woman-hater?--just the point
that you're heir to a peerage? You talk like Tom o' Bedlam."

"Well, you see," expounded John, unruffled, "as an adorer of the sex,
and heir to a peerage, I shouldn't want to marry a woman unless I could
support her in what they call a manner becoming her rank--and I
couldn't."

"Couldn't?" the lady scoffed. "I should like to know why not?"

"I'm too--if you will allow me to clothe my thought in somewhat homely
language--too beastly poor."

"_You--poor?_" ejaculated Lady Blanchemain, falling back.

"Ay--but honest," asseverated John, to calm her fears.

She couldn't help smiling, though she resolutely frowned.

"Be serious," she enjoined him. "Doesn't your uncle make you a suitable
allowance?"

"I should deceive you," answered John, "if I said he made me an
_un_suitable one. He makes me, to put it in round numbers, exactly no
allowance whatsoever."

"The--old--curmudgeon!" cried Lady Blanchemain, astounded, and fiercely
scanning her words.