“The Tyrol?” said Mr. Mackenzie.  “Ay, it is a ferry long way away, but if Sheila will care to go to the Tyrol—­oh yes, I will go to the Tyrol or anywhere if she will go out of London, for it is not good for a young girl to be always in the one house, and no company and no variety; and I was saying to Sheila what good will she do sitting by the window and thinking over things, and crying sometimes?  By Kott, it is a foolish thing for a young girl, and I will hef no more of it!”

In other circumstances Ingram would have laughed at this dreadful threat.  Despite the frown on the old man’s face, the sudden stamp of his foot and the vehemence of his words, Ingram knew that if Sheila had turned round and said that she wished to be shut up in a dark room for the rest of her life, the old King of Borva would have said, “Ferry well, Sheila,” in the meekest way, and would have been satisfied if only he could share her imprisonment with her.

“But first of all, Mr. Mackenzie, I have another proposal to make to you,” Ingram said; and then he urged upon Sheila’s father to accept Mrs. Lorraine’s invitation.

Mr. Mackenzie was nothing loath:  Sheila was living by far too monotonous a life.  He went over to the window to her and said, “Sheila, my lass, you was going nowhere else this evening; and it would be ferry convenient to go with Mr. Ingram, and he would see his friends away, and we could go to a theatre then.  And it is no new thing for you to go to fine houses and see other people; but it is new to me, and you wass saying what a beautiful house it wass many a time, and I hef wished to see it.  And the people they are ferry kind, Sheila, to send me an invitation; and if they wass to come to the Lewis, what would you think if you asked them to come to your house and they paid no heed to it?  Now, it is after four, Sheila, and if you wass to get ready now—­”

“Yes, I will go and get ready, papa,” she said.

Ingram had a vague consciousness that he was taking Sheila up to introduce to her Mrs. Lorraine in a new character.  Would Sheila look at the woman she used to fear and dislike in a wholly different fashion, and be prepared to adorn her with all the graces which he had so often described to her?  Ingram hoped that Sheila would get to like Mrs. Lorraine, and that by and by a better acquaintance between them might lead to a warm and friendly intimacy.  Somehow, he felt that if Sheila would betray such a liking—­if she would come to him and say honestly that she was rejoiced he meant to marry—­all his doubts would be cleared away.  Sheila had already said pretty nearly as much as that, but then it followed what she understood to be an announcement of his approaching marriage, and of course the girl’s kindly nature at once suggested a few pretty speeches.  Sheila now knew that nothing was settled:  after looking at Mrs. Lorraine in the light of these new possibilities, would she come to him and counsel him to go on and challenge a decision?