which ought to be the most natural in the world, but which is, in
her particular and painful case, the most equivocal.'

'Well, come,' I remonstrated. 'You have dropped one or two things,
you know, in the heat of your indignation, not badly calculated to
give one that idea. The eloquent statement you have just made, for
instance--it carries all the patness of old conviction. How often
have you rehearsed it?'

I am a fairly long-suffering person, but I began to feel a little
annoyed with my would-be son-in-law. If the relation were achieved
it would give him no prescriptive right to bully me; and we were
still in very early anticipation of that.

'Ah!' he said disarmingly. 'Don't let us quarrel. I'm sorry you
think that; because it isn't likely to bring your favour to my
project, and I want you friendly and helpful. Oh, confound it!' he
exclaimed, with sudden temper. 'You ought to be. I don't
understand this aloofness. I half suspect it's pose. You
undervalue Cecily--well, you have no business to undervalue me. You
know me better than anybody in the world. Now are you going to help
me to marry your daughter?'

'I don't think so,' I said slowly, after a moment's silence, which
he sat through like a mutinous schoolboy. 'I might tell you that I
don't care a button whom you marry, but that would not be true. I
do care more or less. As you say, I know you pretty well. I'd a
little rather you didn't make a mess of it; and if you must I should
distinctly prefer not to have the spectacle under my nose for the
rest of my life. I can't hinder you, but I won't help you.'