and you
shall never be asked to put your foot in them again."

"But I do like them," she whispered to him.

"The truth is, sir, that there is not the slightest difficulty in
parting with them. So that when the chance came in my way I thought
it best to secure the thing. It had all to be done, so to say, in an
hour. My friend,--as far as he was a friend, for I don't know much
about him,--wanted the money and wanted to be off. So here they are,
and Emily can do as she likes." Of course the rooms were regarded
from that moment as the home for the next twelve months of Mr. and
Mrs. Ferdinand Lopez.

And then they were married. The marriage was by no means a gay
affair, the chief management of it falling into the hands of Mrs.
Dick Roby. Mrs. Dick indeed provided not only the breakfast,--or
saw rather that it was provided, for of course Mr. Wharton paid the
bill,--but the four bridesmaids also, and all the company. They were
married in the church in Vere Street, then went back to the house in
Manchester Square, and within a couple of hours were on their road to
Dover. Through it all not a word was said about money. At the last
moment,--when he was free from fear as to any questions about his own
affairs,--Lopez had hoped that the old man would say something. "You
will find so many thousand pounds at your bankers';"--or, "You may
look to me for so many hundreds a year." But there was not a word.
The girl had come to him without the assurance of a single shilling.
In his great endeavour to get her he had been successful. As he
thought of this in the carriage, he pressed his arm close round her
waist. If the worst were to come to the worst, he would fight the
world for her. But if this old man should be stubborn, close-fisted,
and absolutely resolved to bestow all his money upon his son because
of this marriage,--ah!--how should he be able to bear such a wrong as
that?

Half-a-dozen times during that journey to Dover he resolved to think
nothing further about it, at any rate for a fortnight; and yet,
before he reached Dover, he had said a word to her. "I wonder what
your father means to do about money? He never told you?"

"Not a word."

"It is very odd that he should never have said anything."

"Does it matter, dear?"

"Not in the least. But of course I have to talk about everything to
you;--and it is odd."

CHAPTER XXV

The Beginning of the Honeymoon

On the morning of his marriage, before he went to t