“Well?” he repeated, lifting grave interrogative eyebrows.  He had seated himself; but Keith remained standing, a sign with him of extreme perturbation.

“I thought I could explain things better if I saw you,” he began.

“Quite so; quite so.  I hope you haven’t come to tell me there’s been any ’itch.”

“Well, I told you as much when I wrote.”

“I understood you advised me to withdraw, because you thought Pilkington wanted a big price.”

“I didn’t know what he wanted; I knew what we ought to give.”

“That was settled by looking in the register.  You don’t mean to say he’s going to back out of it?”

Keith was so preoccupied that he failed to see the drift of his father’s questioning.  “You see,” he continued, following his own thoughts, “it’s not as if we had only ourselves to consider.  There’s Miss Harden.”

“Ah, yes, Pilkington did make some mention of a young lady.”

“She was good enough to say she’d rather we bought the library than anybody.  I think we’re bound to justify her confidence.”

“Certainly, most certainly, we are,” said Isaac with solemnity.  He was agreeably flattered by this tribute to the greatness of his house.

“I thought I did right in promising that we would do our very best for her.”

“Of course you were.  But that’s all settled.  Mr. Pilkington knows that I’m prepared to meet his wishes.”

“His wishes?”

“He gave me to understand that he was anxious to have a sum to hand over to the young lady.  In fact, he wrote me a most touching appeal.”

“What d——­d impertinence!  He had no business to appeal!”

“Well, per’aps it wasn’t strictly business-like.  But I think, under the circumstances, ’e was morally—­morally—­justified.  And I think he will consider I’ve responded very handsomely.”

“You’ve made him an offer, then?”

“I made it three days ago, provisionally, and he’s accepted it,” said Isaac, with some heat.  “Why, he’s got the cheque.”

“For how much?”

“For twelve hundred.”

“My dear father, you know, really, that won’t do.”

“Do you think it was foolish to pay the two hundred extra?”

Isaac gazed at him over his fine gold-rimmed spectacles; and as he gazed he kept drawing his beard slowly through one lean and meditative hand.  It was thus that he grasped his son’s argument and drew it to a point.

“Foolish?  It was—­Don’t you see?  We—­we simply can’t do it.”

“Why, you said yourself we could go as far as four thousand five, or four thousand at the very least.”

Keith looked steadily at his father, who was too deeply and solemnly absorbed to perceive the meaning of the look.  “That was not quite what I said.  I said—­if we were not prepared to go so far, it was our duty to withdraw.  I thought I had made that clear to you.”