When she was released, she put an anxious question.
"Tell me the truth. It was really you who proposed?"
But he had grown audacious.
"What does it matter?"
"It matters a great deal, for I had been screwing myself up to do it, in
case you were too shy, but I really believe it would have killed me.
Didn't you see how uncomfortable I was?"
"I, you mean. I was wretched."
"Cool enough to speak. And of course when you said that if only this
and that had happened, you would have asked me to marry you, it was
exactly the same as asking me to do it now."
"Was it?" His tone was blissful. Then a cloud swept over him.
"Poverty--can you face it?"
Lady Fanny shook her head dolefully. He stepped back.
"No? But I am poor. No, of course not. I have been very wrong."
She put her hand shyly on his arm.
"Dear, we shan't be poor, unless--" Her smile returned. "What do you
call poverty?"
"I suppose we ought to have some hundreds a year?" he said, with gloom.
"Oh, more."
"More? Then indeed I have done wrongly. My income will not reach
four."
Her tone mimicked his.
"And you give away three-quarters. You must be the worst match in the
country."
"Oh no," he said simply. "Till now I always thought that I was rather
rich. But I see now that of course you want more--coming from Thorpe
and its luxuries, and--I am ashamed at my selfishness."
"I don't wonder. But let us see. You know I have something."
"Have you? Enough to give you a little of what you have been accustomed
to?"
"That, and a few pounds over for you, which you may spend on beef-tea
and flannel." The murmurs which followed were incoherent. Lady Fanny
said afterwards to Millie--
"For pity's sake, let no one tell him I have three thousand a year. If
he doesn't fly from England in dismay, he will want me to build two or
three cathedrals at least. And now to prepare for the family wrath. At
any rate Milborough can't say much. He should have taken me to Norway."