d expectation.

"Mary Ann"--he bent his head--"it is impossible--because I am not good
enough for you."

Mary Ann grew scarlet. Then she broke into a little nervous laugh. "Oh,
Mr. Lancelot, don't make fun of me."

"Believe me, my dear," he said tenderly, raising his head, "I wouldn't
make fun of you for two million million dollars. It is the truth--the
bare, miserable, wretched truth. I am not worthy of you, Mary Ann."

"I don't understand you, sir," she faltered.

"Thank Heaven for that!" he said, with the old whimsical look. "If you
did you would think meanly of me ever after. Yes, that is why, Mary Ann.
I am a selfish brute--selfish to the last beat of my heart, to the inmost
essence of my every thought. Beethoven is worth two of me, aren't you,
Beethoven?" The spaniel, thinking himself called, trotted over. "He
never calculates--he just comes and licks my hand--don't look at me as if
I were mad, Mary Ann. You don't understand me--thank Heaven again. Come
now! Does it never strike you that if I were to marry you, now, it would
be only for your two and a half million dollars?"

"No, sir," faltered Mary Ann.

"I thought not," he said triumphantly. "No, you will always remain a
fool, I am afraid, Mary Ann."

She met his contempt with an audacious glance.

"But I know it wouldn't be for that, Mr. Lancelot."

"No, no, of course it wouldn't be, not now. But it ought to strike you
just the same. It doesn't make you less a fool, Mary Ann. There!
There! I don't mean to be unkind, and, as I think I told you once
before, it's not so very dreadful to be a fool. A rogue is a worse
thing, Mary Ann. All I want to do is to open your eyes. Two and a half
million dollars are an awful lot of money--a terrible lot of money. Do
you know how long it will be before I make two million dollars, Mary Ann?"

"No, sir." She looked at him wonderingly.

"Two million years. Yes, my child, I can tell you now. You thought I
was rich and grand, I know, but all the while I was nearly a beggar.
Perhaps you thought I was playing the piano--yes, and teaching Rosie--for
my amusement; perhaps you thought I sat up writing half the night out
of--sleeplessness," he smiled at the phrase, "or a wanton desire to burn
Mrs. Leadbatter's gas. No, Mary Ann, I have to get my own living by hard
work--by good work if I can, by bad work if I must--but always by hard
work. While you will have fifteen thousand pounds a year, I shall