Therefore, money had become a still more imperative necessity to him.

He was past forty now.

Disappointed ambition and an ever rebellious spirit had left severe imprints on his face: his figure was growing heavy, his prominent lips, unadorned by a mustache, had an unpleasant downward droop, and lately he had even noticed that the hair on the top of his head was not so thick as of yore.
The situation was indeed getting desperate, since Lady Sue would be of age in three months, when all revenues for her maintenance would cease.
"Methinks her million will go to one of those young jackanapes who hang about her," sighed Mistress de Chavasse, with almost as much bitterness as Sir Marmaduke had shown.
Her fortunes were in a sense bound up with those of her brother-in-law.
He had been most unaccountably kind to her of late, a kindness which his many detractors attributed either to an infatuation for his brother's widow, or to a desire to further irritate his uncle the Earl of Northallerton, who--a rigid Puritan himself--hated the play-actress and her connection with his own family.
"Can naught be done, Marmaduke ?" she asked after a slight pause, during which she had watched anxiously the restless figure of her brother-in-law as he paced up and down the narrow hall.
"Can you suggest anything, my dear Editha ?" he retorted roughly.
"Pshaw!" she ejaculated with some impatience, "you are not so old, but you could have made yourself agreeable to the wench." "You think that she would have fallen in love with her middle-aged guardian ?" he exclaimed with a harsh, sarcastic laugh.

"That girl?
...
with her head full of romantic nonsense ...

and I ...