As far as your own welfare goes, if she has a large fortune,--" "She has no fortune." "No fortune!" "Two or three thousand pounds perhaps." "Then I look upon it as an act of simple madness, and can only say that as such I shall treat it.

I have nothing in my power, and therefore I can neither do you good or harm; but I will not hear any particulars, and I can only advise you to break it off, let the trouble be what it may." "I certainly shall not do that, sir." "Then I have nothing more to say.

Don't ask me to be present, and don't ask me to see her." "You haven't heard her name yet." "I do not care one straw what her name is." "It is Adelaide Palliser." "Adelaide Muggins would be exactly the same thing to me.

My dear Gerard, I have lived too long in the world to believe that men can coin into money the noble blood of well-born wives.

Twenty thousand pounds is worth more than all the blood of all the Howards, and a wife even with twenty thousand pounds would make you a poor, embarrassed, and half-famished man." "Then I suppose I shall be whole famished, as she certainly has not got a quarter of that sum." "No doubt you will." "Yet, sir, married men with families have lived on my income." "And on less than a quarter of it.