Mr. Paramor’s haunting eyes were fastened on his nephew’s face.

“Well, my dear,” they seemed to say, “what ’s the matter?”

Exactly!  Why should she have his money if she married again?  She would forfeit it.  There was comfort in the thought.  Shelton came back and carefully reread the clause, to put the thing on a purely business basis, and disguise the real significance of what was passing in his mind.

“If I die and she marries again,” he repeated aloud, “she forfeits.”

What wiser provision for a man passionately in love could possibly have been devised?  His uncle’s eye travelled beyond him, humanely turning from the last despairing wriggles of his fish.

“I don’t want to tie her,” said Shelton suddenly.

The corners of Mr. Paramour’s mouth flew up.

“You want the forfeiture out?” he asked.

The blood rushed into Shelton’s face; he felt he had been detected in a piece of sentiment.

“Ye-es,” he stammered.

“Sure?”

“Quite!” The answer was a little sulky.

Her uncle’s pencil descended on the clause, and he resumed the reading of the draft, but Shelton could not follow it; he was too much occupied in considering exactly why Mr. Paramor had been amused, and to do this he was obliged to keep his eyes upon him.  Those features, just pleasantly rugged; the springy poise of the figure; the hair neither straight nor curly, neither short nor long; the haunting look of his eyes and the humorous look of his mouth; his clothes neither shabby nor dandified; his serviceable, fine hands; above all, the equability of the hovering blue pencil, conveyed the impression of a perfect balance between heart and head, sensibility and reason, theory and its opposite.

“‘During coverture,’” quoted Mr. Paramor, pausing again, “you understand, of course, if you don’t get on, and separate, she goes on taking?”

If they didn’t get on!  Shelton smiled.  Mr. Paramor did not smile, and again Shelton had the sense of having knocked up against something poised but firm.  He remarked irritably: 

“If we ’re not living together, all the more reason for her having it.”

This time his uncle smiled.  It was difficult for Shelton to feel angry at that ironic merriment, with its sudden ending; it was too impersonal to irritate:  it was too concerned with human nature.

“If—­hum—­it came to the other thing,” said Mr. Paramor, “the settlement’s at an end as far as she ’s concerned.  We ’re bound to look at every case, you know, old boy.”

The memory of the play and his conversation with Halidome was still strong in Shelton.  He was not one of those who could not face the notion of transferred affections—­at a safe distance.

“All right, Uncle Ted,” said he.  For one mad moment he was attacked by the desire to “throw in” the case of divorce.  Would it not be common chivalry to make her independent, able to change her affections if she wished, unhampered by monetary troubles?  You only needed to take out the words “during coverture.”