Matilda had always known that Hiram and Ellen were hopelessly vulgar; but she had thought they cherished a secret admiration for the “higher things” beyond their reach, and were resolved that their son should be a gentleman and their daughter a lady.  She found in Hiram’s energetic bitterness nothing to cause her to change her view.  “He simply wants to hold on to his property to the last, and play the tyrant,” she said to herself.  “All people of property naturally feel that way.”  And she held steadily to her programme.  “Well, Hiram,” she proceeded tranquilly, “if those marriages are to take place, Charles and I will expect you to meet us halfway.”

“If Ross and my Delia and Arthur and your Jane are fond of each other, let ’em marry as you and Charles, as Ellen and I married.  I ain’t buyin’ your son, nor sellin’ my daughter.  That’s my last word, Tillie.”

On impulse, he pressed the electric button in the wall behind him.  When the new upstairs girl came, he said:  “Tell the children I want to see ’em.”

Arthur and Adelaide presently came, flushed with the exercise of the tennis the girl had interrupted.

“Mrs. Whitney, here,” said Hiram, “tells me her children won’t marry without settlements, as it’s called.  And I’ve been tellin’ her that my son and daughter ain’t buyin’ and sellin’.”

Mrs. Whitney hid her fury.  “Your father has a quaint way of expressing himself,” she said, laughing elegantly.  “I’ve simply been trying to persuade him to do as much toward securing the future of you two as Mr. Whitney is willing to do.  Don’t be absurd, Hiram.  You know better than to talk that way.”

Hiram looked steadily at her.  “You’ve been travelin’ about, ’Tilda,” he said, “gettin’ together a lot of newfangled notions.  Ellen and I and our children stick to the old way.”  And he looked at Arthur, then at Adelaide.

Their faces gave him a twinge at the heart.  “Speak up!” he said.  “Do you or do you not stick to the old way?”

“I can’t talk about it, father,” was Adelaide’s evasive answer, her face scarlet and her eyes down.

“And you, sir?” said Hiram to his son.

“You’ll have to excuse me, sir,” replied Arthur coldly.

Hiram winced before Mrs. Whitney’s triumphant glance.  He leaned forward and, looking at his daughter, said:  “Del, would you marry a man who wouldn’t take you unless you brought him a fortune?”

“No, father,” Adelaide answered.  She was meeting his gaze now.  “But, at the same time, I’d rather not be dependent on my husband.”

“Do you think your mother is dependent on me?”

“That’s different,” said Adelaide, after a pause.

“How?” asked Hiram.

Adelaide did not answer, could not answer.  To answer honestly would be to confess that which had been troubling her greatly of late—­the feeling that there was something profoundly unsatisfactory in the relations between Ross and herself; that what he was giving her was different not only in degree but even in kind from what she wanted, or ought to want, from what she was trying to give him, or thought she ought to try to give him.