“I see.  You think we are beating about the bush.  Perhaps we are.  It is the difference between being old and being young, Aldous, my boy.  Well—­now then—­for Miss Boyce.  How much have you seen of her?—­how deep has it gone?  You can’t wonder that I am knocked over.  To bring that man amongst us!  Why, the hound!” cried the old man, suddenly, “we could not even get him to come and see his father when he was dying.  John had lost his memory mostly—­had forgotten, anyway, to be angry—­and just craved for Dick, for the only creature he had ever loved.  With great difficulty I traced the man, and tried my utmost.  No good!  He came when his father no longer knew him, an hour before the end.  His nerves, I understood, were delicate—­not so delicate, however, as to prevent his being present at the reading of the will!  I have never forgiven him that cruelty to the old man, and never will!”

And Lord Maxwell began to pace the library again, by way of working off memory and indignation.

Aldous watched him rather gloomily.  They had now been discussing Boyce’s criminalities in great detail for a considerable time, and nothing else seemed to have any power to touch—­or, at any rate, to hold—­Lord Maxwell’s attention.  A certain deep pride in Aldous—­the pride of intimate affection—­felt itself wounded.

“I see that you have grave cause to think badly of her father,” he said at last, rising as he spoke.  “I must think how it concerns me.  And to-morrow you must let me tell you something about her.  After all, she has done none of these things.  But I ought not to keep you up like this.  You will remember Clarke was very emphatic about your not exhausting yourself at night, last time he was here.”

Lord Maxwell turned and stared.

“Why—­why, what is the matter with you, Aldous?  Offended? 
Well—­well—­There—­I am an old fool!”

And, walking up to his grandson, he laid an affectionate and rather shaking hand on the younger’s shoulder.

“You have a great charge upon you, Aldous—­a charge for the future.  It has upset me—­I shall be calmer to-morrow.  But as to any quarrel between us!  Are you a youth, or am I a three-tailed bashaw?  As to money, you know, I care nothing.  But it goes against me, my boy, it goes against me, that your wife should bring such a story as that with her into this house!”

“I understand,” said Aldous, wincing.  “But you must see her, grandfather.  Only, let me say it again—­don’t for one moment take it for granted that she will marry me.  I never saw any one so free, so unspoilt, so unconventional.”

His eyes glowed with the pleasure of remembering her looks, her tones.

Lord Maxwell withdrew his hand and shook his head slowly.

“You have a great deal to offer.  No woman, unless she were either foolish or totally unexperienced, could overlook that.  Is she about twenty?”

“About twenty.”