April Lady by Georgette Heyer

and I shouldn't be surprised if it was true."
    "As though that should excuse my running into debt! Oh, Dy, this quite overpowers me! No wonder he said that!"
    He looked uneasily at her. "Said what? If you mean to have a fit of the vapours, Nell, I'm off, and so I warn you!"
    "Oh, no! Indeed, I don't! Only it is such an agitating reflection—I didn't tell you, Dy, but he said something to me which made me think he believes I married him for the sake of his fortune!"
    "Well, you did, didn't you?"
    "No!" she cried hotly. "Never, never!"
    "What, you don't mean to tell me you fell in love with him?" said the Viscount incredulously.
    "Of course I did! How could I help but do so?"
    "Of all the silly starts!" said his lordship disgustedly. "What the devil should cast you into this distempered freak if that's the way of it? What have you been doing to make Cardross think you don't love him, if you do?"
    She turned away her face. "I—I was trying to be a conformable wife, Dy! You see, Mama warned me about not making demands, or—or hanging upon him, or appearing to notice it, if he should have Another Interest, and—"
    "Oh, so the blame lies at Mama's door. I might have known it! Never knew such a henwitted creature in my life!"
    "Oh, Dysart, hush! Indeed, she meant it for the best! You will not repeat it, but she was so anxious I shouldn't suffer a mortifying disillusionment, as, I am afraid, she did!"
    "Did she, though?" said the Viscount, interested. "I didn't know my father was pitching it rum in those days. I must say I should have thought even Mama could have seen that Cardross ain't a bird of that feather. Never been a man of the town from anything I ever heard. How came you to swallow all that humdudgeon, Nell? Dash it, you must have known he was in love with you!"
    "I thought—I thought it was all consideration, because he is so very kind and gentlemanlike!" she confessed.
    "Kind and gentlemanlike?" repeated Dysart, in accents of withering scorn. "Well, upon my soul, Nell, seems to me you're as big a ninnyhammer as Mama! To be taken in by one of her Banbury tales, when there was Cardross making a regular cake of himself over you! If that don't beat the Dutch!"
    She hung her head, but said in a faint voice: "It was stupid of me, but there was more than that, Dy. You see, I knew about Lady Orsett. Letty told me."
    "That girl," said the Viscount severely, "wants conduct! Not but what I shouldn't have thought that you needed telling, because everyone knew she was his ch è re amie for years. And don't you put on any die-away airs to me, my girl, because, for one thing, it's no use bamming me you didn't know anything about my father's light frigates; and, for another, Cardross's way of life before you married him ain't your concern! Lady Orsett's got Lydney in tow now, so that's enough flim-flam about her!"
    "Has she, Dy?" Nell said eagerly.
    "So they say. I don't know!"
    "Oh, if it were not for this dreadful debt how happy I should be!" she sighed.
    "Nonsense! Make a clean breast of the whole to Cardross, and be done with it!"
    "I'd rather die! Don't you understand, Dy? How could he believe me sincere, if I told him now, when I am in debt again, that I didn't care a button for his fortune?"
    The Viscount checked the scoffing retort that sprang to his tongue. He did understand. After a thoughtful moment, he said: "He'd think it was cream-pot love, would he? Ay, very true: bound to! Particularly," he added, in a voice of censure, "if you've been treating him with a stupid sort of indifference, which I've a strong notion you have! Oh, well! we shall have to think of some way of raising the blunt, and that's all there is to it!"
    Too grateful for his willingness to come to her aid to cavil at his freely-worded criticisms, Nell waited hopefully, confident that he would be able to tell her how to extricate herself from her difficulty. Nor was she mistaken. After a turn or two about the room, he said suddenly: "Nothing easier! I