Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/150

 "And marriage?" queried Beresford.

"Most men marry for a woman to live with, I shall marry for a woman to die with. That reminds me, this morning I met Lola Craven."

"I wanted to know how you got on."

"You come then to gloat over a fellow-creature's misery," said Drewitt reproachfully.

Beresford laughed, he was in a mood to laugh at anything.

"To tear a man from his natural environment, Richard, shows both brutality and a sad lack of half-tones. I am at my best when taking coffee from the hand of the admirable Hoskins; but to tear me from my proper setting six hours before what our cousins would call 'the scheduled time,' and plunge me into the unaccustomed experience of breakfast is an outrage, nothing less."

"Poor old Drew," laughed Beresford.

"Add to it Mr. Deacon Quelch, and you reach a degree of frightfulness, Richard, that would terrify the most hardened Hun. I wonder why I was given Aunt Caroline?" he mused.

"What was she like?" enquired Beresford.

"The same as always, wise and worldly."

"I mean the girl."

"Lola Craven," said Drewitt deliberately, "is a girl that no man with any self-respect would ever marry for her money."

"Is she?" began Beresford.

"Freckles, physical inequalities and general lumpiness," continued Drewitt, ignoring the