"Arithmetic is no use in such a case as mine," he said; "no man can make
fifty pounds pay a hundred. I suppose it must end in the bankruptcy court.
It will be only our last humiliation, the culminating disgrace."
"The bankruptcy court! O, papa!" cried Clarissa piteously. She had a very
vague idea as to what bankruptcy meant, but felt that it was something
unutterably shameful--the next thing to a criminal offence.
"Better men than I have gone through it," Mr. Lovel went on with a sigh,
and without the faintest notice of his daughter's dismay; "but I couldn't
stand Arden and Holborough after that degradation. I must go abroad, to
some dull old town in the south of France, where I could have my books and
decent wine, and where, as regards everything else, I should be in a living
grave.
"But they would never make you bankrupt surely, papa;" Clarissa exclaimed
in the same piteous tone.
"_They_ would never make me bankrupt!" echoed her father fretfully. "What
do you mean by _they_? You talk like a baby, Clarissa. Do you suppose that
tradesmen and bankers and bill-discounters would have more mercy upon me
than upon other people? They may give me more time than they would give
another man, perhaps, because they know I have some pride of race, and
would coin my heart's blood rather than adopt expedients that other men
make light of; but when they know there is no more to be got out of me,
they will do their worst.
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