“Hello, Mainwaring!  What’s the matter?  You look black as a thunder-cloud!  Did you have something indigestible for luncheon?”

“Matter enough I should say,” growled the other, unsuccessfully trying to ignore Mr. Thornton’s outstretched hand, “to find you hobnobbing with that blackguard!”

Mr. Thornton glanced over his shoulder at the young people with a comical look of perplexity.  “Well, you see how it is yourself, Mainwaring:  what is a fellow to do?  This is a house divided against itself, as it were, and no matter what my personal sentiments towards you might be, I find myself forced to maintain a position of strict neutrality.”

“Neutrality be damned! you had better maintain better parental government in your own family!”

“As you do in yours, for instance.”

“You know very well,” continued Ralph Mainwaring, flushing angrily, “that if you had forbidden Edith marrying Hugh under present conditions, he would have got down off his high horse very quickly.”

“That is something I would never do,” Mr. Thornton replied, calmly, “for two reasons; first, I have never governed my daughter by direct commands and prohibitions, and, second, I think just as much of Hugh Mainwaring without his father’s money as with it; more, if it is to be accompanied with the conditions which you imposed.”

“Then am I to understand,” demanded the other, angrily, “that you intend to go against me in this matter?”

“My dear Mainwaring,” said Mr. Thornton, much as he would address a petulant child, “this is all the merest nonsense.  I am not going against you, for I have no part in this contest; my position is necessarily neutral; but if you want my opinion of the whole matter, I will tell you frankly that I think, for once in your life, you have bitten off more than you can swallow, and you will find it so before long.”

“Perhaps it might be just as well to reserve your opinion till it is called for,” the other answered, shortly.

“All right,” returned Mr. Thornton, with imperturbable good humor; “but any time that you want to wager a thousand or so on the outcome of this affair, remember the money is ready for you!”

The conversation changed, but Ralph Mainwaring was far more chagrined and annoyed than he would have acknowledged.  Mr. Thornton’s words rang in his ears till they seemed an augury of defeat, and, though outwardly as dogged and defiant as ever, he was unable to banish them, or to throw off the strange sense of depression which followed.

Meanwhile, amid the discordant elements surrounding them, Harold Mainwaring and Winifred Carleton found little opportunity for any but the most desultory conversation, but happily there was little need for words between them.  Heart can speak to heart through the subtle magnetism of a hand-clasp, or the swift flash from eye to eye, conveying meanings for which words often prove inadequate.