"A family of paupers!" she said, scornfully. "Your father has nothing to give you; absolutely nothing, and you can yourself judge, how, with your tastes and habits, you will like living at Stoneleigh with two meals a day, as I hear they sometimes do, blacking your own boots and building your own fires."
Here Neil winced, for he knew very well that he had no fancy for poverty, even if Bessie shared it with him But he told his mother he had, and consigned Blanche's ten thousand a year to a place where the gold might be melted, and said he loved Bessie McPherson better than anything in life, and should marry her if he pleased in spite of a hundred mothers. But he knew he should not--knew he could not face the reality when it came to the point. He was too dependent upon what wealth would bring him to throw it away for one girl, even if that girl were Bessie, whom he loved with all the intensity of his selfish nature--loved so much that for an hour or so after his interview with his mother, he balanced the two questions, Blanche with ten thousand a year, or Bessie with nothing. Naturally Blanche turned the scale, and then to himself, he said: "I will go to Stoneleigh and live for a few days in Bessie's presence, and then I will say good-by forever and marry Blanche as mother wishes me to do. She is not so very bad except for her eyebrows and that horrid drawl. But Bessie, oh, Bessie, how can I give her up!" and the young man's heart cried out in pain for the sweet young girl he had loved all his life, and who, he was sure loved him. To do Neil justice, this was the bitterest drop in the cup--the knowing that Bessie, too, would suffer. "She has enough to bear," he said, "without an added drop from me, I wish she would get in love with some one else and throw me overboard. I believe I could bear it better. There's Jack he was awfully sweet on her in London, but he has only been to see her once since. He is too poor to marry, and there is no one else--yes, by Jove, there is!" and Neil started to his feet. "There is Grey Jerrold. He is just the man for Bessie to fall in love with if she could see him, and I'll bring that about."
It may seem strange that one so utterly selfish as Neil McPherson should have devised this plan to help him in his dilemma, but this in fact was only another phase of his selfishness. He knew it was impossible for him to marry Bessie, and felt that it was also impossible to give her up without other aid than his own feeble will. If she could prefer some one else to himself, it would be a help, however much his self-love might be wounded, and if another than himself must taste the sweetness he so coveted he would far rather that other should be Grey Jerrold, an American, even though he bore the rose away to foreign soil, than to have one of his own countrymen flaunting his happiness in his face, Bessie and Grey were suited to each other, he thought, and he would bring them together; so, when he heard from Grey of his intended trip to Carnarvon, he suggested that he defer it until the holidays and spend a day or two at Stoneleigh. Then he wrote to Bessie that he was as good as engaged to Blanche, and that she would probably fall in love with Grey, who was sure to do so with her. This done, he began to anticipate the visit, which he said to himself was to be his last, and from which he meant to get all the happiness possible, he would kiss Bessie as often as he liked; he would hold her hands in his, the dear little hands which had worked so hard, but, which nevertheless, were so soft and pretty; he would look into the innocent blue eyes and see them kindle and droop beneath his gaze, and then there should be one long, never to be forgotten walk by themselves across the suspension bridge, through the straggling old town, and along the road by the river toward Beaumaris, and he would tell her everything, all his love for her and its utter hopelessness because they were both so poor, and he would say good-by forever, and bid her marry Grey Jerrold, and so remove temptation from him and make it easier for him to be true to Blanche.