Mr. Dagonet, within a narrower range, had his own play of humour; and it met Mr. Spragg’s with a leap.  “It’s because I knew he would manage to make cooking-stoves as unremunerative as a profession that I saved him from so glaring a failure by putting him into the law.”

The retort drew a grunt of amusement from Mr. Spragg; and the eyes of the two men met in unexpected understanding.

“That so?  What can he do, then?” the future father-in-law enquired.

“He can write poetry—­at least he tells me he can.”  Mr. Dagonet hesitated, as if aware of the inadequacy of the alternative, and then added:  “And he can count on three thousand a year from me.”

Mr. Spragg tilted himself farther back without disturbing his subtly-calculated relation to the scrap basket.

“Does it cost anything like that to print his poetry?”

Mr. Dagonet smiled again:  he was clearly enjoying his visit.  “Dear, no—­he doesn’t go in for ‘luxe’ editions.  And now and then he gets ten dollars from a magazine.”

Mr. Spragg mused.  “Wasn’t he ever taught to work?”

“No; I really couldn’t have afforded that.”

“I see.  Then they’ve got to live on two hundred and fifty dollars a month.”

Mr. Dagonet remained pleasantly unmoved.  “Does it cost anything like that to buy your daughter’s dresses?”

A subterranean chuckle agitated the lower folds of Mr. Spragg’s waistcoat.

“I might put him in the way of something—­I guess he’s smart enough.”

Mr. Dagonet made a gesture of friendly warning.  “It will pay us both in the end to keep him out of business,” he said, rising as if to show that his mission was accomplished.

The results of this friendly conference had been more serious than Mr. Spragg could have foreseen—­and the victory remained with his antagonist.  It had not entered into Mr. Spragg’s calculations that he would have to give his daughter any fixed income on her marriage.  He meant that she should have the “handsomest” wedding the New York press had ever celebrated, and her mother’s fancy was already afloat on a sea of luxuries—­a motor, a Fifth Avenue house, and a tiara that should out-blaze Mrs. Van Degen’s; but these were movable benefits, to be conferred whenever Mr. Spragg happened to be “on the right side” of the market.  It was a different matter to be called on, at such short notice, to bridge the gap between young Marvell’s allowance and Undine’s requirements; and her father’s immediate conclusion was that the engagement had better be broken off.  Such scissions were almost painless in Apex, and he had fancied it would be easy, by an appeal to the girl’s pride, to make her see that she owed it to herself to do better.

“You’d better wait awhile and look round again,” was the way he had put it to her at the opening of the talk of which, even now, he could not recall the close without a tremor.