"Not much use talking like that." "I'll take patronage, if I must, because beggars can't be choosers; but I'll not take it from my inferiors." "'Inferiors'! That's a funny word for you to use. How is Timothy Waite your inferior? I don't see it." "Don't you?" he answered, getting red. "Then you ought to see it. Damn it all, Cora, you're so cold-blooded where I'm concerned. And yet you're supposed to love me and want to marry me." "I'm not a fool, and if 'tis cold-blooded to have a bit of common-sense, then I'm cold-blooded. Though I'm a bit tired of hearing you fling the word in my face. Timothy Waite always was as good a man as you; and why not?" "I should call him a mean, money-grubbing sort of chap myself--close-fisted too. He's not a sportsman, anyway. You can't deny that." "Not much good being generous, if you've got nought to be generous with. And mean he is not. He lent money to your uncle, and never pushed the claim half as hard as many smaller men. I know him a long sight better than you do. And, if you've got any sense left, you'll go to him and ask him if he can help you to find a job. I'm only thinking of you--not myself. I can go into a hat shop any day; but you--you can't do anything. What are you good for? For that matter you don't seem to be able to get a chance to show what you are good for. All your swell hunting friends are worth just what I said they were worth. Now you're down on your luck, they look t'other way." He began to grow angry. "You're the fair-weather sort too, then? One here and there has hinted to me that you were--your brother always said it. But never, never would I stand it from any of them. And now I see that it is so." "No need to call names. The case is altered since Nathan Baskerville ruined you, and I'm not the sentimental kind to pretend different. As we're on this now, we'd better go through with it. You want to marry me and I wanted to marry you; but we can't live on air, I believe. I can't, anyway. It's a very simple question. You wish to marry me so soon as I please; but what do you mean to keep me on? I've got nothing--you know that; and you've got less than nothing, for there's the rent of the house we were to have lived in." "I've let the house and I am looking round. I'm open to any reasonable offer." "What nonsense you talk! Who are you that people should make you offers? What can you do? I ask you that again." "By God! And you're supposed to love me!" "When poverty comes in at the door--you know the rest. I'm not a heroine of a story-book. All very well for you; but what about me? You can't afford to marry, and I can't afford not to; so there it stands. There's only one thing in the world--only one thing--that you can be trusted to earn money at, and that's teaching people to ride horses. And that you won't do. I've thought it out, and you needn't swear and curse; because it's the truth." "Damn it all----"