“Who educated you?”

“My dear father.”

“It seems there are two of you.  Where is your brother?”

“At present, I do not know exactly where he is, but I think in the far West; possibly in Montana—­probably in Canada.”

“How does he earn his bread?  By daubing, or fiddling?”

“Since he earns it honestly, that is his own affair.  We have not heard from him for some months.”

“I thought so!  He inherits the worthless vagabond strain of—­”

“He is his mother’s idol, and she glories in his resemblance to you, sir; and to your father; hence his name—­Robert L. Darrington.”

“Then she must have one handsome child!  I am not surprised that he is the favorite.”

“Bertie certainly is her darling, and he is very handsome; not in the very least degree like me.”

For the first time, their eyes met in a friendly glance, and a covert smile stirred the General’s lips; but as he put out his hand toward her, she moved a step beyond his reach.

“Beryl, you consider me a dreadful, cruel old tyrant?”

She made no reply.

“Answer me.”

“You are my mother’s father; and that word—­father, means so much to me, that it shall shield even you, from the shadow of disrespect.”

“Oh! very dutiful indeed, but dead as the days when daughters obeyed, and honored their fathers!  Beggarly foreign professors wiped all that out of the minds of wealthy girls at boarding schools—­just as they changed their backwoods pronunciation of French and Italian.  Don’t evade my question.”

“I did not come here, sir, to bandy words; and I ended my mission by delivering the letter intrusted to me.”

“You regard me as a vindictive old bear?”

“I had heard much of the Darringtons; I imagined a great deal more; but now, like the Queen of Sheba, I must testify—­’Behold, the half was not told me.’”

He threw back his lion-like head, and laughed.

“That will do.  Shake hands, child.”

“No, thank you.”

“And you will not sit down?”

“Frankly, I prefer not.  I long to get away.”

“You shall certainly be gratified, but there are a few things which I intend you shall hear.  Of course you know that your mother was my only child, and an heiress; but you are ignorant probably of the fact that when she returned to boarding school for the last session, she was engaged in marriage to the son of my best friend—­a man in every respect desirable, and thoroughly acceptable to me.”

“So my mother told me.”

“Indeed?  She should blush to remember it.  While she wore his engagement ring, she forgot her promise to him, her duty to me, her lineage, her birth, her position—­and was inveigled by a low adventurer who—­”

“Who was my own precious father—­poor, but noble, and worthy of any princess!  Unless you can refer to him respectfully, name him not at all, in his child’s presence.”