"Feelings!" echoed Madame Alpenny vehemently. "What are feelings of any sort compared with poverty? I have little money myself, and what I have is all in these things." She touched her rings, bracelets and brooches. "Zara does not earn what her talents demand. We want money, and the sole way in which we can get it is for her to marry money. Failing you there are others." "Quite so," said Hench, thinking of Bracken, and smiling slightly. "But a man who has no wealth may wish to marry her." "Referring to yourself, I suppose," said Madame Alpenny dryly, and quite mistaking his meaning. "Well, you won't marry her unless you prove through those papers and that advertisement to be possessed of a fortune. Until then, I hope you will be circumspect with regard to Zara. Don't be too attentive to her, and turn the poor child's head." "There is no fear of my doing that," said Hench equally dryly, "but to make things safe I propose to remove myself from temptation. To-morrow I shall leave this place." "For how long?" "For ever." "Oh,"--Madame Alpenny looked as black as thunder, as this proposal by no means suited her scheme of getting a rich son-in-law,--"don't do that." "Why not? After all, there is nothing to keep me here." "Zara!" "But you will not let me pay attention to Zara with a view to matrimony." Madame Alpenny looked uneasy and puzzled. "You place me on the horns of a dilemma, Mr. Hench. I can't let you become engaged to my daughter until I am sure you have money. But of course"--she brightened up--"if what I suspect is true, and money comes, you can return and marry her." This frank suggestion placed Hench on the horns of a dilemma, but he managed to evade binding himself in a most dexterous way. "If Mademoiselle Zara is really able to return my love, and thinks that she will be happy as my wife, I shall certainly return and renew my suit. But remember, Madame, she must become my wife of her own free will, and not because you insist." "Oh, that's all right," said the old lady easily. "Zara is a good girl and will obey her mother to whom she owes so much." "That is the very thing I don't wish her to do," insisted Hench, sharply; "it is no question of filial obedience. If she accepts me of her own free will, and without coercion from you, I marry her; otherwise I will not." "I am not in the habit of coercing my daughter," said Madame Alpenny loftily, and, as usual, evading the main point; "and I shall expect you to return with all information about your family. Then we can talk. I look upon you as a man of honour, Mr. Hench, so much so that I do not even ask you to give me any address. If you get money you will marry Zara." "And if I do not?" Madame Alpenny shrugged her fat shoulders. "In that case she will marry another person who has money." "You are very business-like," said Hench, highly disapproving of this mercantile way of looking at things. "I always am," she assured him coolly; "it saves trouble!"