"But her happiness must be much to you."

"It is everything. But in thinking of her happiness I must look
beyond what might be the satisfaction of the present day. You must
excuse me, Mr. Lopez, if I say that I would rather not discuss the
matter with you any further." Then he rang the bell and passed
quickly into an inner room. When the clerk came Lopez of course
marched out of the chambers and went his way.

Mr. Wharton had been very firm, and yet he was shaken. It was by
degrees becoming a fixed idea in his mind that the man's material
prosperity was assured. He was afraid even to allude to the subject
when talking to the man himself, lest he should be overwhelmed by
evidence on that subject. Then the man's manner, though it was
distasteful to Wharton himself, would, he well knew, recommend him
to others. He was good-looking, he lived with people who were highly
regarded, he could speak up for himself, and he was a favoured guest
at Carlton House Terrace. So great had been the fame of the Duchess
and her hospitality during the last two months, that the fact of the
man's success in this respect had come home even to Mr. Wharton. He
feared that the world would be against him, and he already began to
dread the joint opposition of the world and his own child. The world
of this day did not, he thought, care whether its daughters' husbands
had or had not any fathers or mothers. The world as it was now didn't
care whether its sons-in-law were Christian or Jewish;--whether they
had the fair skin and bold eyes and uncertain words of an English
gentleman, or the swarthy colour and false grimace and glib tongue of
some inferior Latin race. But he cared for these things;--and it was
dreadful to him to think that his daughter should not care for them.
"I suppose I had better die and leave them to look after themselves,"
he said, as he returned to his arm-chair.

Lopez himself was not altogether ill-satisfied with the interview,
not having expected that Mr. Wharton would have given way at once,
and bestowed upon him then and there the kind father-in-law's "bless
you,--bless you!" Something yet had to be done before the blessing
would come, or the girl,--or the money. He had to-day asserted his
own material success, speaking of himself as of a moneyed man,--and
the statement had been received with no contradiction,--even without
the suggestion of a doubt. He did not therefore suppose that the
difficulty was over; but he was cle