"Put that out of your head," said Jack Neville. "In the first place
you would certainly find yourself in a mess, and in the next place the
attempt itself would be dishonest. I dare say men have crept out of
marriages because they have been illegal; but a man who arranges a
marriage with the intention of creeping out of it is a scoundrel."

"You needn't bully about it, Jack. You know very well that I don't mean
to creep out of anything."

"I'm sure you don't. But as you ask me I must tell you what I think. You
are in a sort of dilemma between this girl and Uncle Scroope."

"I'm not in any dilemma at all."

"You seem to think you have made some promise to him which will be
broken if you marry her;--and I suppose you certainly have made her a
promise."

"Which I certainly mean to keep," said Fred.

"All right. Then you must break your promise to Uncle Scroope."

"It was a sort of half and half promise. I could not bear to see him
making himself unhappy about it."

"Just so. I suppose Miss O'Hara can wait."

Fred Neville scratched his head. "Oh yes;--she can wait. There's nothing
to bind me to a day or a month. But my uncle may live for the next ten
years now."

"My advice to you is to let Miss O'Hara understand clearly that you will
make no other engagement, but that you cannot marry her as long as your
uncle lives. Of course I say this on the supposition that the affair
cannot be broken off."

"Certainly not," said Fred with a decision that was magnanimous.

"I cannot think the engagement a fortunate one for you in your position.
Like should marry like. I'm quite sure of that. You would wish your
wife to be easily intimate with the sort of people among whom she would
naturally be thrown as Lady Scroope,--among the wives and daughters of
other Earls and such like."

"No; I shouldn't."

"I don't see how she would be comfortable in any other way."

"I should never live among other Earls, as you call them. I hate that
kind of thing. I hate London. I should never live here."

"What would you do?"

"I should have a yacht, and live chiefly in that. I should go about
a good deal, and get into all manner of queer places. I don't say
but what I might spend a winter now and then in Leicestershire or
Northamptonshire, for I am fond of hunting. But I should have no regular
home. According to my scheme you should have this place,--and sufficient
of the income to maintain it of course."

"That wouldn't do, Fred,"