Page:The Tragic Muse (London & New York, Macmillan & Co., 1890), Volume 2.djvu/48

40 "Ah, that's the question. Mrs. Dallow won't say."

"Well, you may consider that when it comes off I will make you a settlement."

"I feel your kindness more than I can say," Nick replied; "but that will probably be the moment when I shall be least conscious of wanting anything."

"You'll appreciate it later—you'll appreciate it very soon. I shall like you to appreciate it," Mr. Carteret went on, as if he had a just vision of the way a young man of a proper spirit should feel. Then he added: "Your father would have liked you to appreciate it."

"Poor father!" Nick exclaimed vaguely, rather embarrassed, reflecting on the oddity of a position in which the ground for holding up his head as the husband of a rich woman would be that he had accepted a present of money from another source. It was plain that he was not fated to go in for independence; the most that he could treat himself to would be dependence that was duly grateful. "How much you expect of me!" he pursued, with a grave face.

"It's only what your father did. He so often spoke of you, I remember, at the last, just after you had been with him alone—you know I saw him then. He was greatly moved by his interview with you, and so was I by what he told me of it. He said he should live on in you—he should work in you. It has always given me a very peculiar feeling, if I may use the expression, about you."

"The feelings are indeed peculiar, dear Mr. Carteret, which take so munificent a form. But you do—oh, you do—expect too much."