"If you marry her, her eldest son must of course be the heir to the title."
"I am not at all so sure of that. All manner of queer things may be arranged by marriages with Roman Catholics."
"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."