"Nothing could happen? What do you mean? You're not _married_? If you are, it must be secretly, for you're put down as single in Burke." "To the best of my knowledge," John reassured her, laughing, "Burke is right. And I prayerfully trust he may never have occasion to revise his statement." "For mercy's sake," cried she, "don't tell me you're a woman-hater!" "That's just the point," said he. "I'm an adorer of the sex." "Well, then?" questioned she, at a loss. "How can you 'prayerfully' wish to remain a bachelor? Besides, aren't you heir to a peerage? What of the succession?" "That's just the point," he perversely argued. "And you know there are plenty of cousins." "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. "No," returned John, soothingly, "he isn't a curmudgeon. But he's a very peculiar man. He's a Spartan, and he lacks imagination. It has simply never entered his head that I could _need_ an allowance. And, if you come to that, I can't say that I positively do. I have a tiny patrimony--threepence a week, or so--enough for my humble necessities, though scarcely perhaps enough to support the state of a future peeress. No, my uncle isn't a curmudgeon; he's a very fine old boy, of whom I'm immensely proud, and though I've yet to see the colour of his money, we're quite the best of friends. At any rate, you'll agree that it would be the deuce to pay if I were to fall in love. "Ffff," breathed Lady Blanchemain, fanning. "What did I say of an age of prose and prudence? Yet you don't _look_ cold-blooded. What does money matter? _Dominus providebit_. Go read Browning. What's 'the true end, sole and single' that we're here for? Besides, have you never heard that there are such things as marriageable heiresses in the world?"