'HE WANTS TO GET RICH TOO QUICK.'
As they strolled home Lopez told his wife that he had accepted an invitation to dine the next day at the Parker's cottage.In doing this his manner was not quite so gentle as when he had asked her to call on them.He had been a little ruffled by what had been said, and now exhibited his temper.'I don't suppose it will be very nice,' he said, 'but we may have to put up with worse things than that.'
'I have made no objection.'
'But you don't seem to take it very cordially.'
'I had thought I had got on very well with Mrs Parker.If you can eat your dinner with them, I'm sure I can.You do not seem to like him altogether, and I wish you had got a partner more to your taste.'
'Taste indeed! When you come to this kind of thing it isn't a matter of taste.The fact is, that I am in the fellow's hands to an extent I don't like to think of, and don't see my way out of it unless your father will do as he ought to do.You altogether refuse to help me with your father, and you must, therefore, put up with Sexty Parker and his wife.It is quite on the cards that worse things may come even than Sexty Parker.' To this she made no immediate answer, but walked on, increasing her pace, not only unhappy, but also very angry.It was becoming a matter of doubt to her whether she could continue to bear the repeated attacks about her father's money.'I can see how it is,' he continued.
'You think that a husband should bear all the troubles of life, and that a wife should never be made to hear of them.'
'Ferdinand,' she said, 'I declare I did not think that any man could be so unfair to a woman as you are to me.'
'Of course! Because I haven't got thousands a year to spend on you I am unfair.'
'I am content to live in any way that you may direct.If you are poor, I am satisfied to be poor.If you are even ruined, I am content to be ruined.'
'Who is talking about ruin?'
'If you are in want of everything, I also will be in want and will never complain.Whatever our joint lot may bring to us Iwill endure and endeavour to endure with cheerfulness.But Iwill not ask my father for money, either for you or for myself.
He knows what he ought to do.I trust him implicitly.'
'And me not at all.'
'He is, I know, in communication with you about what should be done.I can only say,--tell him everything.'
'My dear, that is a matter in which it may be possible that Iunderstand my own interest best.'
'Very likely.I certainly understand nothing, for I do not even know the nature of your business.How can I tell him that he ought to give you money?'
'You might have asked him for your own.'
'I have got nothing.Did I ever tell you that I had?'
'You ought to have known.'
'Do you mean that when you asked me to marry you I should have refused you because I did not know what money my papa would give me? Why did you not ask papa?'
'Had I known him then as well as I do now you may be quite sure that I should have done so.'
'Ferdinand, it will be better that we should not speak about my father.I will in all things strive to do as you would have me, but I cannot hear him abused.If you have anything to say, go to Everett.'
'Yes;--when he is such a gambler that your father won't even speak to him.Your father will be found dead in bed some day, and all his money will have been left to some cursed hospital.'
They were at their own door when this was said, and she, without further answer, went up to her bedroom.
All these bitter things had been said, not because Lopez had thought that he could further his own views by saying them;--he knew indeed that he was injuring himself by every display of ill-temper;--but she was in his power, and Sexty Parker was rebelling.He thought a good deal that day on the delight he would have in 'kicking that ill-conditioned cur', if only he could afford to kick him.But is wife was his own, and she must be taught to endure his will, and must be made to know that though she was not to be kicked, yet she was to be tormented and ill-used.And it might be possible that he should cow her spirits as to bring her to act as she should direct.Still, as he walked alone along the sea-shore, he knew that it would be better for him to control his temper.
On that evening he did write to Mr Wharton,--as follows,--and he dated the letter from Little Tankard Yard, so that Mr Wharton might suppose that that was his own place of business, and that he was there, at his work:
MY DEAR SIR, You have asked for a schedule of my affairs, and I have found it quite impossible to give it.As it was with the merchants whom Shakespeare and the other dramatists described,--so it is with me.My caravels are out at sea, and will not always come home in time.My property at this moment consists of certain shares of cargoes of jute, Kauri gum, guano, and sulphur, worth altogether at the present moment something over 26,000 pounds, of which Mr Parker possesses a half;--but then of this property only a portion is paid for,--perhaps something more than a half.For the other half our bills are in the market.
But in February next these articles will probably be sold for considerably more than 30,000 pounds.If I had 5,000pounds placed to my credit now, I should be worth about 15,000 pounds by the end of next February.I am engaged in sundry other smaller ventures, all returning profits;---but in such a condition of things it is impossible that I should make a schedule.
I am undoubtedly in the condition of a man trading beyond his capital.I have been tempted by fair offers, and what I think I may call something beyond an average understanding of such matters, to go into ventures beyond my means.I have stretched my arm out too far.In such a position it is not perhaps unnatural that I should ask a wealthy father-in-law to assist me.It is certainly not unnatural that I should wish him to do so.