On that evening he said no more of Johnny Eames, but said much of the difficulty of a man establishing himself with a wife in London, who had nothing but his own moderate income on which to rely.  He did not in so many words tell her that if her friends could make up for her two or three thousand pounds,—­that being much less than he had expected when he first made his offer,—­this terrible difficulty would be removed; but he said enough to make her understand that the world would call him very imprudent in taking a girl who had nothing.  And as he spoke of these things, Lily remaining for the most part silent as he did so, it occurred to him that he might talk to her freely of his past life,—­more freely than he would have done had he feared that he might lose her by any such disclosures.  He had no fear of losing her.  Alas! might it not be possible that he had some such hope!

He told her that his past life had been expensive; that, though he was not in debt, he had lived up to every shilling that he had, and that he had contracted habits of expenditure which it would be almost impossible for him to lay aside at a day’s notice.  Then he spoke of entanglements, meaning, as he did so, to explain more fully what were their nature,—­but not daring to do so when he found that Lily was altogether in the dark as to what he meant.  No; he was not a generous man,—­a very ungenerous man.  And yet, during all this time, he thought that he was guided by principle.  “It will be best that I should be honest with her,” he said to himself.  And then he told himself, scores of times, that when making his offer he had expected, and had a right to expect, that she would not be penniless.  Under those circumstances he had done the best he could for her—­offering her his heart honestly, with a quick readiness to make her his own at the earliest day that she might think possible.  Had he been more cautious, he need not have fallen into this cruel mistake; but she, at any rate, could not quarrel with him for his imprudence.  And still he was determined to stand by his engagement and willing to marry her, although, as he the more thought of it, he felt the more strongly that he would thereby ruin his prospects, and thrust beyond his own reach all those good things which he had hoped to win.  As he continued to talk to her he gave himself special credit for his generosity, and felt that he was only doing his duty by her in pointing out to her all the difficulties which lay in the way of their marriage.

At first Lily said some words intended to convey an assurance that she would be the most economical wife that man ever had, but she soon ceased from such promises as these.  Her perceptions were keen, and she discovered that the difficulties of which he was afraid were those which he must overcome before his marriage, not any which might be expected to overwhelm him after it.  “A cheap and nasty menage would be my aversion,” he said to her.  “It