Nature having endowed the Van Tromps with every excellence but that of good looks, it was Miss Lucilla’s tendency to depreciate beauty; but she was too much a woman not to be sensible of the charms of six feet two, with proportionate width of shoulder, and a way of standing straight and looking straight, incompatible with anything but “acting straight,” that was full of a fine dominance.  That he should be carefully dressed was but a detail in the exactitude which was the main element in his character; while his daily custom of wearing in his button-hole a dark-red carnation, a token of some never-explained memory of his dead wife, indicated a capacity for sober romance which she did not find displeasing.

“Then what would you do about it?” he asked, at last, pausing abruptly in his walk and confronting her.

“There isn’t much choice, Derek.  Human society is so constituted as to leave us very little opportunity for striking into original paths.  Aunt Regina has told you many a time what was possible, and you didn’t like it; but I’ll repeat it if you wish.  You could send her to a good boarding-school—­”

Never!

“Or you could have a lady to chaperon her properly.”

“Rubbish!”

“Well, there you are, Derek.  You refuse the only means that could help you in your situation; and so you leave Dorothea a prey to a woman like Mrs. Wappinger.  You’ll excuse me for mentioning it; but—­”

“I’d excuse you for mentioning anything; but even Mrs. Wappinger ought to have justice.  You know as well as I do that Uncle James wanted to marry her, and that it was only her own common-sense that saved us from having her as an aunt.  You may not admire her type, but you can’t deny that it’s one which has a legitimate place in American civilization.  Ours isn’t a society that can afford to exclude the self-made man, or his widow.”

“That may be quite true, Derek; only in that case you have also to reckon with—­his son.”

Derek bounded away once more, making manifest efforts to control himself before he spoke again.

“You know this subject is most distasteful to me, Lucilla,” he said, severely.

“I know it is; and it’s equally so to me.  But I see what’s going on, and you don’t—­there’s the difference.  What should a young man like you know about bringing up a school-girl?  To see you intrusted with her at all makes me very nearly doubt the wisdom of the ends of Providence.  She’s a good little girl by nature, but your indulgence would spoil an angel.”

“I don’t indulge her.  I’ve forbidden her to do lots of things.”

“Exactly; you come down on the poor thing when she’s not doing any harm, and you put no restrictions on the things in which she’s wilful.  If there’s a girl on earth who is being brought up backward, it’s Dorothea Pruyn.”

“She’s my child.  I presume I’ve got a right to do what I like with her.”

“You’ll find that you’ve done what you don’t like with her, when you’ve allowed her to get into a ridiculous, unmaidenly flirtation with the young man Wappinger.”