"I? What do I know about your silly playwriting?"
Laughing, he bent nearer and patted the gloved hand on the cushions beside him. "You know perfectly well, Helena dear, what it is to want to do something so bad you simply can't help yourself. It's the Matthias blood in both of us. That's why you ran off and married Tankerville against everybody's advice. Of course, it did turn out beautifully; but you didn't stop to wonder whether it would or not when you took it into your head to marry him. The same with me: you decide that it's high time for your delightful sister-in-law to get married, and you look round and fix on your dutiful nephew for the bridegroom-elect--wholly because you want it to be that way."
He took a moment to think this over. "I suppose I do," he admitted almost reluctantly. "But--"
"You're in love with her!" Helena declared with spirit.
"Then why," she begged in tones of moderate exasperation--"why do you object--hang fire--run away like a silly, frightened schoolboy as soon as I get everything arranged for you?"
"But, you see, I'm not in a position to get married yet," he argued. "I haven't--"
"How's that--'not in a position'?" she interrupted testily.
"You keep forgetting I'm the family pauper, the poor relation, whereas Venetia has all the money there is, more or less."
"There you are!" Helena turned her palms out expressively; folded them in resignation. "What more can you ask?"
"Something more nearly approaching an equal footing, at least."
"Jack!"--she turned to him with a fine air of innocence--"how much money _have_ you got, anyway?"
"Thirty-six hundred per annum, as you know very well," he replied. "But, my dear, dear aunty (you're one of the most beautiful creatures alive and I'm awfully proud and fond of you) surely you must understand that no decent fellow wants to go to the girl he's in love with and make a proposition like this: 'I've got thirty-six hundred and you've got three hundred and sixty thousand; let's marry and divide.'"
"I may make a lot before long. Meanwhile, I like it."
"But if you'd only listen to reason and let Tankerville--"
"With all the best intentions in the world, dear Helena, Tankerville couldn't make me a successful business man. It isn't in me. Permit me to muddle along in my own, 'special, wrong-headed way, and the chances are I'll make good in the end. But, once and for all, I refuse positively to give up my trade and try to make sense of Wall Street methods."