Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 42).djvu/745

"You may have the whip-hand of me, but I'll break your neck before you get a chance of laying the lash across my back." far it will go by the time we're married. I shouldn't wonder if I were to murder her on our wedding night."

"Is that so really? What a honeymoon you'll have if you do. Is the lady young?"

"Young! I shouldn't care to ask her age for fear of the depth of the lie she'd tell me; she's at least old enough to be my mother—my grandmother, for all the woman that's left in her."

"What a very charming couple you will make—full of vivacity! Has the lady physical charm?"

"She never had. I tell you she takes all to pieces nowadays. She is one of those women the ladies' papers always suggest to the masculine mind; she gets her hair from one of the persons advertised on the back pages; her complexion from some wretched harridan whose advertisement is to be found a page or two in front; her figure from a person the editor specially recommends—at so much a time; and her teeth from the Lord knows who. Oh, she's a regular specimen of love's young dream."

"Is she really? She must be a walking nightmare. What is the fortunate lady's name? I take it she has tons of money."

"Her name is Drawbridge, and she has, at any rate, enough money to pay you, Clarke."

"I hope there will be a little left for you when I am paid, I do really, my dear boy."

"Well, there may be or there mayn't; but I'm marrying her to get the money to pay you, and that's the whole, plain truth."

Mr. Armitage was about to rise from his chair when the other leaned right over the table and stopped him.

"One moment, Armitage, one moment. When are you going to touch that money, eh?"

"I can't tell you the exact day now, can I? I only proposed to her yesterday. It was your telegram that brought me to the sticking-point."