“That will not suit me at all!” cried Herr Schwarz.  “As far as your father is concerned, my offer must be accepted—­or rejected—­now.”

He struck his open hand on the polished mahogany of the table beside him.

“Then I am very sorry you have had the trouble of coming down,” said Falloden politely.  “Shall I order your carriage?”

The great ship-owner stared at him.  He was on the point of losing his temper, perhaps of withdrawing from his bargain, when over Falloden’s head he caught sight of the Titian and the play of light on its shining armour; of the Van Dyck opposite.  He gave way helplessly; gripped at the same moment by his parvenu’s ambition, and by the genuine passion for beautiful things lodged oddly in some chink of his common and Philistine personality.

“I have the refusal then—­for twenty-four hours?” he said curtly.

Falloden nodded, wrote him a statement to that effect, ordered whisky and soda, and saw them safely to their carriage.

* * * * *

Then pacing slowly through the rooms, he went back towards the library.  His mind was divided between a kind of huckster’s triumph and a sense of intolerable humiliation.  All around him were the “tribal signs” of race, continuity, history—­which he had taken for granted all his life.  But now that a gulf had opened between him and them, his heart clung to them consciously for the first time.  No good!  He felt himself cast out—­stripped—­exposed.  The easy shelter fashioned for him and his by the lives of generations of his kindred had fallen in fragments about him.

“Well—­I never earned it!”—­he said to himself bitterly, turning in disgust on his own self-pity.

When he reached the library he found his father walking up and down deep in thought.  He looked up as his son entered.

“Well, that saves the bankruptcy, Duggy, and—­as far as I can see—­leaves a few thousands over—­portions for the younger children, and what will enable you to turn round.”

Douglas assented silently.  After a long look at his son, Sir Arthur opened a side door which led from the library into the suite of drawing-rooms.  Slowly he passed through them, examining the pictures steadily, one by one.  At the end of the series, he turned and came back again to his own room, with a bent head and meditative step.  Falloden followed him.

In the library, Sir Arthur suddenly straightened himself.

“Duggy, do you hate me—­for the mess I’ve made—­of your inheritance?”

The question stirred a quick irritation in Falloden.  It seemed to him futile and histrionic; akin to all those weaknesses in his father which had brought them disaster.

“I don’t think you need ask me that,” he said, rather sharply, as he opened a drawer in his father’s writing-table, and locked up the paper containing Herr Schwarz’s offer.

Sir Arthur looked at him wistfully.