Van Diemen strode round the drawing-room with his hands in his pockets.  “There’s a disparity of ages,” he said, abruptly, as if desirous to pour out his lesson while he remembered it.  “A man upwards of forty marries a girl under twenty, he’s over sixty before she’s forty; he’s decaying when she’s only mellow.  I ought never to have struck you, I know.  And you’re such an infernal bad temper at times, and age does n’t improve that, they say; and she’s been educated tip-top.  She’s sharp on grammar, and a man may n’t like that much when he’s a husband.  See her, if you must.  But she does n’t take to the idea; there’s the truth.  Disparity of ages and unsuitableness of dispositions—­what was it Fellingham said?—­like two barrel-organs grinding different tunes all day in a house.”

“I don’t want to hear Mr. Fellingham’s comparisons,” Tinman snapped.

“Oh! he’s nothing to the girl,” said Van Diemen.  “She doesn’t stomach leaving me.”

“My dear Philip! why should she leave you?  When we have interests in common as one household—­”

“She says you’re such a damned bad temper.”

Tinman was pursuing amicably, “When we are united—­” But the frightful charge brought against his temper drew him up.  “Fiery I may be.  Annette has seen I am forgiving.  I am a Christian.  You have provoked me; you have struck me.”

“I ’ll give you a couple of thousand pounds in hard money to be off the bargain, and not bother the girl,” said Van Diemen.

“Now,” rejoined Tinman, “I am offended.  I like money, like most men who have made it.  You do, Philip.  But I don’t come courting like a pauper.  Not for ten thousand; not for twenty.  Money cannot be a compensation to me for the loss of Annette.  I say I love Annette.”

“Because,” Van Diemen continued his speech, “you trapped us into that engagement, Mart.  You dosed me with the stuff you buy for wine, while your sister sat sugaring and mollifying my girl; and she did the trick in a minute, taking Netty by surprise when I was all heart and no head; and since that you may have seen the girl turn her head from marriage like my woods from the wind.”

“Mr. Van Diemen Smith!” Tinman panted; he mastered himself.  “You shall not provoke me.  My introductions of you in this neighbourhood, my patronage, prove my friendship.”

“You’ll be a good old fellow, Mart, when you get over your hopes of being knighted.”

“Mr. Fellingham may set you against my wine, Philip.  Let me tell you—­I know you—­you would not object to have your daughter called Lady.”

“With a spindle-shanked husband capering in a Court suit before he goes to bed every night, that he may n’t forget what a fine fellow he was one day bygone!  You’re growing lean on it, Mart, like a recollection fifty years old.”

“You have never forgiven me that day, Philip!”

“Jealous, am I?  Take the money, give up the girl, and see what friends we’ll be.  I’ll back your buyings, I’ll advertise your sellings.  I’ll pay a painter to paint you in your Court suit, and hang up a copy of you in my diningroom.”