But, after all, he was going to Hunston, whether he liked it or not,
simply because Uncle Elbert had asked him. The lonely old gentleman, he
knew, loved him like a son: he had turned straight to him in his hour of
need. This had touched the young man, and had finally made up his mind
for him. Moreover Mary, a spoiled little piece who was suffered to set
her smug childish will against the combined wills of both her parents,
aroused his keenest antipathy. To put her in her place, to teach her
that children must obey their parents in the Lord, was a duty to
society, to the State. What Uncle Elbert wanted with such a child, he
could not conceive; but since he did want her, have her he should.
Tilting back his office chair and running his hand through his hair,
Varney longed to spank her.

This thought came to him, definitely and for about the seventh time, at
half-past one o'clock on the third day, Monday. At the same moment, his
telephone-bell rang sharply. It was the sailing-master to say that his
good spouse had come aboard and that everything on the _Cypriani_ was in
readiness for the start.

"I'll be on board inside of an hour," said Varney.

He telephoned to Uncle Elbert, telephoned to Peter, and locked up his
desk. To his office he casually gave out that pressing business matters
were calling him out of town for a day or two.

The two young men had been as furtive as possible about their proposed
journey. They had not met since the night Varney had dangled the hope of
jail and disgrace into Peter's lightening face, and so, or otherwise,
cajoled him into going along. Both of them had kept carefully away from