He could, if he would, enable me to marry Lucia. Success must
come with time. It was this time that would be transformed. This
time, this daily life of waiting work, that hung upon me now like a
wolf, with its fangs, gnawing my brain, would then, if I possessed
her, pass by like a dove upon wings. After luncheon, when he was
standing by the hearth, I thought, was a good time to approach the
subject, and I came up to the other end of the mantelpiece.
"Don't you think you could," I said, striking a lucifer and lighting
up a cigar, without the least wish to smoke at that moment, "manage
to let Lucia and myself arrange something?"
He looked at me a little ironically.
"Have you heard that the firm have rescinded their decision, and are
going to bring out the book after all?" he asked quietly.
I coloured with anger and annoyance at the sneer. "No," I answered,
simply, "I have not."
"Then, my dear Victor, you know it is quite useless to re-open this
old question. I have told you before, and I can only repeat it now,
I am not going to make you an independent allowance, that you may
marry your cousin and comfortably settle down into a do-nothing
existence."
"I never propose such an existence," I answered calmly. "Have I ever
led it? am I leading it now?"
"No, because just now you have every incentive to work, and you have
all your energies turned in that one direction, but with a secured
income, independence, and married to this girl, I know exactly what
you would become, and if I can prevent it, I am not going to have my
son a confirmed idler about town.
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