"Not for anything in life! And one hundred pounds is a large sum of money. I cannot afford it."
"But, Elizabeth, I must have one hundred. I need every penny of it. I cannot do with less. Give me one hundred, Elizabeth."
"I tell you it will trouble me very much to spare a hundred pounds. It will indeed, Roland."
But Roland stuck to the idea of one hundred pounds, and finally Elizabeth gave way before his entreaties. She looked at the handsome fellow and sighed hopelessly. She said, "I will give it to you, and do as you wish with it." Why should she now look for consideration from her brother? He had never yet reached higher ground than "I want;" and to expect Roland to look beyond himself was to expect the great miracle that never comes.
He remained with his sister ten days, and thoroughly enjoyed the change of life. And indeed he found himself quite a little hero in St. Penfer. Miss Mohun met him with smiles; she asked sweetly after Mrs. Tresham and never once named the fifty pounds Roland had promised her. The landlady of the Black Lion made a great deal of him. She came herself of fisher-folk, and she was pleased that the young gentleman had treated her caste honourably. The landlord gave him cigars and wine, and all the old companions of his pleasures and necessities showed him that they approved his conduct. The Rev. Mr. Farrar made a point of praising him. As he stood with the landlord of the Black Lion at the open door of the inn, he said to him:
"Mr. Tresham, I respect your strength of character. I know that in certain circles of society it is considered a slight offence for a young man to seduce a girl of the lower orders; but that a _mesalliance_ with her is a social crime almost unpardonable. You have said boldly to the whole community that it is more ungentlemanly to wrong a poor girl's honour than to marry a wife below your own station. Sir, such an example is worth all the sermons that could be preached on the subject."
And Roland listened to all the spoken and unspoken praise given him with a smiling appropriation. It really never struck him, or apparently anyone else, that Denas might have been the person who took care of her own honour; or that Roland had done right because he could not induce his companion to do wrong. And there was another popular view of this marriage which was singularly false--the general assumption that Denas had been greatly honoured by it, and that John and Joan Penelles ought to be pleased and satisfied. Why not? Such a decision was the evident one, and how many people have the time or the interest in any subject to go below or beyond the evident?
