"Would you mind asking?" She did not answer him at once, but sat thinking. And he also paused before he went on with his lesson. But, in order that the lesson should be efficacious, it would be as well that he should tell her as much as he could even at this first lecture. "To tell you the truth, this is quite essential to me at present,--very much more than I had thought it would be when we fixed the day for our marriage." Her mind within her recoiled at this, though she was very careful that he should not feel any such motion in her body. "My business is precarious." "What is your business, Ferdinand?" Poor girl! That she should have been allowed to marry a man, and then have to ask such a question! "It is generally commercial. I buy and sell on speculation. The world, which is shy of new words, has not yet given it a name. I am a good deal at present in the South American trade." She listened, but received no glimmering of an idea from his words. "When we were engaged everything was as bright as roses with me." "Why did you not tell me this before,--so that we might have been more prudent?" "Such prudence would have been horrid to me. But the fact is that I should not now have spoken to you at all, but that since we left England I have had letters from a sort of partner of mine. In our business things will go astray sometimes. It would be of great service to me if I could learn what are your father's intentions." "You want him to give you some money at once." "It would not be unusual, dear,--when there is money to be given. But I want you specially to ask him what he himself would propose to do. He knows already that I have taken a home for you and paid for it, and he knows--. But it does not signify going into that." "Tell me everything." "He is aware that there are many expenses. Of course if he were a poor man there would not be a word about it. I can with absolute truth declare that had he been penniless it would have made no difference as to my suit to you. But it would possibly have made some difference as to our after plans. He is a thorough man of the world, and he must know all that. I am sure he must feel that something is due to you,--and to me as your husband. But he is odd-tempered, and, as I have not spoken to him, he chooses to be silent to me. Now, my darling, you and I cannot afford to wait to see who can be silent the longest." "What do you want me to do?" "To write to him." "And ask him for money?" "Not exactly in that way. I think you should say that we should be glad to know what he intends to do, also saying that a certain sum of money would at present be of use to me." "Would it not be better from you? I only ask, Ferdinand. I never have even spoken to him about money, and of course he would know that you had dictated what I said."