or thereabouts, what with our money and the support of the
Ashburnhams. Her uncle, as soon as he considered that she had
really settled down with me-- and I sent him only the most
glowing accounts of her virtue and constancy --made over to her a
very considerable part of his fortune for which he had no use. I
suppose that we had, between us, fifteen thousand a year in
English money, though I never quite knew how much of hers went
to Jimmy. At any rate, we could have shone in Fordingbridge. I
never quite knew, either, how she and Edward got rid of Jimmy. I
fancy that fat and disreputable raven must have had his six golden
front teeth knocked down his throat by Edward one morning
whilst I had gone out to buy some flowers in the Rue de la Paix,
leaving Florence and the flat in charge of those two. And serve
him very right, is all that I can say. He was a bad sort of
blackmailer; I hope Florence does not have his company in the
next world.

As God is my Judge, I do not believe that I would have separated
those two if I had known that they really and passionately loved
each other. I do not know where the public morality of the case
comes in, and, of course, no man really knows what he would
have done in any given case. But I truly believe that I would have
united them, observing ways and means as decent as I could. I
believe that I should have given them money to live upon and that
I should have consoled myself somehow. At that date I might have
found some young thing, like Maisie Maidan, or the poor girl, and
I might have had some peace. For peace I never had with
Florence, and hardly believe that I cared for her in the way of love
after a year or two of it. She became for me a rare and fragile
object, something burdensome, but very frail. Why it was as if I