That Betty had not received his information with joy did not distress
him. He had a poor opinion of the feminine intelligence. Girls got their
minds full of nonsense from reading novels and seeing plays--like Betty.
Betty objected to those who were wiser than herself providing a perfectly
good prince for her to marry. Some fool notion of romance, of course. Not
that he was angry. He did not blame her any more than the surgeon blames
a patient for the possession of an unsuitable appendix. There was no
animus in the matter. Her mind was suffering from foolish ideas, and he
was the surgeon whose task it was to operate upon it. That was all. One
had to expect foolishness in women. It was their nature. The only thing
to do was to tie a rope to them and let them run around till they were
tired of it, then pull them in. He saw his way to managing Betty.

Nor did he anticipate trouble with John. He had taken an estimate of
John's character, and it did not seem to him likely that it contained
unsuspected depths. He set John down, as he had told Betty, as a young
man acute enough to know when he had a good job and sufficiently
sensible to make concessions in order to retain it. Betty, after the
manner of woman, might make a fuss before yielding to the inevitable,
but from level-headed John he looked for placid acquiescence.

His mood, as the automobile whirred its way down the hill toward the
town, was sunny. He looked on life benevolently and found it good. The
view appealed to him more than it had managed to do on other days. As a
rule, he was the man of blood and iron who had no time for admiring
scenery, but to-day he vouchsafed it a not unkindly glance. It was
certainly a dandy little place, this island of his. A vineyard on the
right caught his eye. He made a mental note to uproot it and run up a
hotel in its place. Further down the hill, he selected a site for a