“Delightful woman!  A spider, I tell you, a roaring hypocrite, too, bamboozling poor Rose into thinking her a virtuous, persecuted little darling, with a noble passion for you, and my sister is a downright person not easily fooled.  At this moment, Violet is probably shedding tears on her shoulder over poor Maurice, while she is plotting how soon she can become mistress of Arranstoun.  Good God! when I think of it—­I would rather get in a girl from the village and go through the ceremony with her, and make myself safe, than have the prospect of Violet Hatfield as a wife.  Michael, I tell you seriously, dear boy—­you won’t have the ghost of a chance if you are still unmarried when poor Maurice dies!”

Michael bounded from his chair once more.  He was perfectly furious—­furious with the situation—­furious with the woman—­furious with himself.

“Confound it, Henry, I—­know it—­but it does not mend matters your ranting there—­and I am so sorry for the poor chap—­Maurice, I mean—­a very decent fellow, poor Maurice!  Can’t you suggest any way out?”

Mr. Fordyce mused a moment, while he deliberately puffed smoke, Michael’s impatience increasing so that he ran his hands through his dark, smooth hair, whose shiny, immaculate brushing was usually his pride!

“Can’t you suggest a way out?” he reiterated.

Mr. Fordyce did not reply—­then after a moment:  “You were always too much occupied with women, Michael—­from your first scrape when you left Eton; and over this affair you have been a complete fool.”

Michael was heard to swear again.

“You have been inconsistent, too, because you did not even employ your usual ruthless methods of doing what you pleased with them.  You have simply drifted into allowing this vile creature’s cobwebs to cling on to your whole existence until you are almost paralyzed, and it seems to me that an immediate marriage with someone else is your only way of escape.  Such a waste of your life!  Just analyze the position.  You have everything in the world, this glorious place—­an old name—­money—­prestige—­and if your inclinations do run to the material side of things instead of the intellectual, they are still successful in their demonstration.  No one has a better eye for a horse, or is a finer shot.  The best at driven grouse for your age, my boy, I have ever seen.  You are full of force, Michael, and ought to do some decent thing—­instead of which you spoil the whole outlook by fooling after this infernal woman—­and you have not now the pluck to cut the Gordian knot.  She will drag you to the lowest depths——­”

Then he laughed.  “And only think of that voice in one’s ears all day long!  I would rather marry old Bessie at the South Lodge.  She is eighty-four, she tells me, and would soon leave you a widower.”

The first ray of hope shot into Michael’s bright blue eyes—­and he exclaimed with a kind of joy, as he seized Binko, his bulldog, by his fat, engaging throat: