Philip, too, came in for his share of honours down below, and acknowledged them as best he might, for he had not the moral courage to repudiate the position.  He felt that his father had forced his hand completely, and that there was nothing to be done, and sank into the outward calmness of despair.  But if his companions could have seen the whirlpool of hatred, terror, and fury that raged within his breast as he sat and chatted, and sipped his great-grandfather’s port, they would have been justifiably astonished.

At length the banquet, for it was nothing less, came to an end, and, having bowed their farewell to the last departing guest, the old man and his son were left alone together in the deserted drawing-room.  Philip was seated by a table, his face buried in his hand, whilst his father was standing by the dying fire, tapping his eye-glass nervously on the mantelpiece.  It was he who broke the somewhat ominous silence.

“Well, Philip, how did you like my speech?”

Thus addressed, the son lifted his face from his hand; it was white as a sheet.

“By what authority,” he asked in a harsh whisper, “did you announce me as engaged to Miss Lee?”

“By my own, Philip.  I had it from both your lips that you were engaged.  I did not choose that it should remain a secret any longer.”

“You had no right to make that speech.  I will not marry Miss Lee; understand once and for all, I will not marry her.”

In speaking thus, Philip had nerved himself to bear one of those dreadful outbursts of fury that had earned his father his title; but, to his astonishment, none such came.  The steely eyes glinted a little as he answered in his most polite manner, and that was all.

“Your position, Philip, then is that you are engaged, very publicly engaged, to a girl whom you have no intention of marrying—­a very disgraceful position; mine is that I have, with every possible solemnity, announced a marriage that will not come off—­a very ridiculous position.  Very good, my dear Philip; please yourself.  I cannot force you into a disgraceful marriage.  But you must not suppose that you can thus thwart me with impunity.  Allow me to show you the alternative.  I see you are tired, but I shall not detain you long.  Take that easy-chair.  This house and the land round it, also the plate, which is very valuable, but cannot be sold—­by the way, see that it is safely locked up before you go to bed—­are strictly entailed, and must, of course belong to you.  The value of the entailed land is about 1000 pounds a year, or a little less in bad times; of the unentailed, a clear 4000 pounds; of my personal property about 900 pounds.  Should you persist in your refusal to marry Miss Lee, or should the marriage in any way fall through, except from circumstances entirely beyond your control, I must, to use your own admirably emphatic language, ask you to ‘understand, once and for all,’ that, where your name appears in my will