“Hold on!—­Hold on!  Oh, what an unforgiving minx!  You Seymours are all like tinder boxes—­your mother was just like you and so was—­”

“Well, not father,” she bridled, with a toss of her head.

St. George smiled queerly—­Prim was one of his jokes.  “Your father, my dear Kate, has the milk of human kindness in his veins, not red fighting blood.  That makes a whole lot of difference.  Now listen to me:—­you love Harry—­”

“No!  I despise him!  I told him so!” She had risen from her seat and had moved to the mantel, where she stood looking into the fire, her back toward him.

“Don’t you interrupt me, you blessed girl—­just you listen to Uncle George for a minute.  You do love Harry—­you can’t help it—­nobody can.  If you had seen him this morning you would have thrown your arms around him in a minute—­I came near doing it myself.  Of course he’s wild, reckless, and hot-headed like all the Rutters and does no end of foolish things, but you wouldn’t love him if he was different.  He’s just like Spitfire—­never keeps still a minute—­restless, pawing the ground, or all four feet in the air—­then away she goes!  You can’t reason with her—­you don’t wish to; you get impatient when she chafes at the bit because you are determined she shall keep still, but if you wanted her to go like the wind and she couldn’t, you’d be more dissatisfied than ever.  The pawing and chafing is of no matter; it is her temperament that counts.  So it is with Harry.  He wouldn’t be the lovable, dashing, high-spirited young fellow he is if he didn’t kick over the traces once in a while and break everything to pieces—­his promises among them.  And it isn’t his fault—­it’s the Spanish and Dutch blood in his veins—­the blood of that old hidalgo and his Dutch ancestor, De Ruyter—­that crops out once in a while.  Harry would be a pirate and sweep the Spanish main if he had lived in those days, instead of being a gentleman who values nothing in life so much as the woman he loves.”

He had been speaking to her back all this time, the girl never moving, the outlines of her graceful body in silhouette against the blaze.

“Then why doesn’t he prove it?” she sighed.  She liked old hidalgos and had no aversion to pirates if they were manly and brave about their work.

“He does—­and he lives up to his standard except in this one failing for which I am truly sorry.  Abominable I grant you—­but there are many things which are worse.”

“I can’t think of anything worse,” she echoed with a deep sigh, walking slowly toward him and regaining her chair, all her anger gone, only the pain in her heart left.  “I don’t want Harry to be like the others, and he can’t live their lives if he’s going to be my husband.  I want him to be different,—­to be big and fine and strong,—­like the men who have made the world better for their having lived in it—­that old De Ruyter, for instance, that his father is always