"Malcolm, my boy, that girl would be the very wife for you!" and when he had enunciated this opinion, he coughed, and gave his neat washing tie an emphatic twitch. "Wife for me, sir?" repeated his relative, "but I'm not looking for one!" "No! well it is never too late to mend--and fully time you were making a search. Handsome heiresses won't fall into your mouth, and nothing but an heiress will suit. I may live till I'm ninety, you know--and, anyway, I'm a poor man. Don't wait till you are a stiff, stocky old fellow, for, if you do, you _may_ wait. But now, when you are a smart-looking chap, and I can give you a shove, is your time. There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to _a_ fortune." "I don't think a lady with a fortune would care to swelter in India," remarked his companion, "and I could not bring myself to live at home on my wife's money." "Hut-tut-tut!" exclaimed Sir Horace, and his eyebrows assumed an expression which invariably struck terror to the hearts of club waiters. "That sort of talk is bosh! It's of no consequence which has the coin, so long as it's _there_--and I could show you a dozen men who live quite happily with wealthy wives--and haven't a rap of their own!" There was a silence for two or three moments, broken only by the buzz of voices and the strains of the "Valse Bleu." At last the younger man spoke. "What sort of a girl is this Miss Chandos?" "The sort of girl you see. A beautiful creature who carries herself superbly, knows how to talk, and to walk, and to put on her clothes. As far as I'm aware, she neither gambles, swears, smokes nor drinks!" "Good Lord, I should hope not!" ejaculated his nephew. "But, mind you" (here Sir Horace's tone changed into a graver key), "she is perfectly sensible of her own value--though affable and gracious to all. Perhaps a little supercilious to her foreign slaves--especially the Italian--she has a horror of dusky complexions and black blood which amounts to a craze." "Then what about the aunt?" inquired Captain Haig, with rather malicious significance. "My dear boy, I've already assured you that Madame is of _sang azur_--an old Alcantara family. She married a Scotchman who made a fortune in indigo. The girl has been brought up in England, and polished abroad. I believe she is twenty-two years of age. From personal experience I am in a position to inform you that she can keep her temper, hold her tongue, write a fine hand, and add up a bridge account." "Oh, well, that is something."