“It is mighty near kin,” said Uncle Dick.  “No end of happy folk begin with esteem and go on like turtle doves.  My little Jack, you shall have the prettiest wedding gown!  It’s all a mistake and a misunderstanding, and the good Lord knows there’s too much of both in this old world!  You’ll think better of it all, and you’ll find that you didn’t know your own mind,—­and there’ll be a smile for poor Cary when he comes riding back to-night?”

“No, no,” cried Jacqueline.  “There is no mistake and no misunderstanding.  Love cannot be forced, and I’ll not marry where I do not love!”

“You don’t,” said Colonel Churchill slowly, “you don’t by any chance love some one else?  What does that colour mean, Jacqueline?  Don’t stammer!  Speak out!”

But Jacqueline, standing by the old leather chair, bowed her head upon its high green back, and neither could nor would “speak out.”  The two men, grey and withered, obstinate and imperious in a day and generation that subordinated youth to the councils of the old, gazed at their niece with perplexity and anger.  With the simpler of the two the perplexity was the greater, with the other anger.  A fear was knocking at Major Churchill’s heart.  He would not admit it, strove not to listen to it, or to listen with contemptuous incredulity.  “It’s not possible,” he said to himself.  “Not a thousand summers at Jane Selden’s would make her so forget herself!  Jacqueline in love with that damned Jacobin demagogue upstairs!  Pshaw!” But the fear knocked on.

Jacqueline lifted her head.  “Be good to me, Uncle Dick!  If I could love, if I could marry Mr. Cary, I would—­I would indeed!  But I cannot.  Please let me go!”

“Not till I know more than I know now,” said Colonel Churchill.  “If it’s George Lee, Jacqueline, I’ll not say a word, sorry as I am for Cary.  But if it’s Will Allen, I’ll see you dead before I give my consent!  He’s a spendthrift and a Republican!”

“I care neither for Mr. Lee nor Mr. Allen,” said Jacqueline, with a burning cheek.  “Oh, Uncle Edward, make Uncle Dick let me go!”

“It is not wise,” Major Churchill considered within himself, “to push a woman too far.  I’m a suspicious fool to think this thing of Jacqueline.  It’s all some girl’s fancy or other, and if we go easily Cary will yet win—­by God, he shall win!  This damned Yahoo upstairs is neither here nor there!”

He spoke aloud to his brother.  “Best let the child go think it over, Dick.  She knows her duty—­and that we expect her compliance.  She doesn’t want to wound us cruelly, to make us unhappy, to prove herself blind and ingrate.  Give her a kiss and let her go.”

“You come down and sing to us to-night, my little Jack, in your blue gown,” quoth Uncle Dick.  “Don’t you ever let a time come when your singing won’t be the sweetest sound in the world to me!  Now go, and think of what we have said, and of poor Cary, ridden off to Greenwood!”