Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/247

Rh "I thought, for you lords, life was one long holiday," she said, surprised.

I was glad of the reminder. My love was hopeless. A struggling doctor could not ask for the hand of an heiress. Even if he could, it would be a poor recommendation to start with a confession of imposture. To ask, without confessing, were to become a scoundrel and a fortune-hunter of the lowest type. No; better to pass from her ken, leaving her memory of me untainted by suspicion—leaving my memory of her an idyllic, unfinished dream. And yet I could not help reflecting, with agony, that if I had not begun under false colours, if I had come to her only as what I was, I might have dared to ask for her love—yea, and perhaps have won it. Oh, how weak I had been not to tell her from the first! As if she would not have appreciated the joke! As if she would not have enrolled herself joyously in the campaign against Jones!

"Ah! my life will be anything but a long holiday, I fear," I sighed.

"Say, you're not an hereditary legislator?" she asked.

"Legislation is not the hereditary disease I complain of," I said evasively.

"What then?"

"Love!" I replied desperately.

She laughed gaily.

"I guess that's an original view of love."

"Why? My parents suffered from it: at least, I hope they did."

"Doubtful! Your Upper Ten is usually supposed to have cured marriage of it."

She bent her head over her plate, so that I strove in vain to read her eyes.

"Well, it's a beastly shame," I said. "Don't you think