‘But I do.’

‘Do what?’

‘Papa, you had better listen to me.’  Sir Marmaduke, when he heard this, assumed an air of increased authority, in which he intended that paternal anger should be visible; but he seated himself, and prepared to receive, at any rate, some of the arguments with which Nora intended to bolster up her bad cause.  ’I have promised Mr Stanbury that I will be his wife.’

‘That is all nonsense.’

’Do listen to me, papa.  I have listened to you and you ought to listen to me.  I have promised him, and I must keep my promise.  I shall keep my promise if he wishes it.  There is a time when a girl must be supposed to know what is best for herself, just as there is for a man.’

’I never heard such stuff in all my life.  Do you mean that you’ll go out and marry him like a beggar, with nothing but what you stand up in, with no friend to be with you, an outcast, thrown off by your mother with your father’s curse?’

‘Oh, papa, do not say that.  You would not curse me.  You could not.’

‘If you do it at all, that will be the way.’

‘That will not be the way, papa.  You could not treat me like that.’

‘And how are you proposing to treat me?’

’But, papa, in whatever way I do it, I must do it.  I do not say today or tomorrow; but it must be the intention and purpose of my life, and I must declare that it is, everywhere.  I have made up my mind about it.  I am engaged to him, and I shall always say so unless he breaks it.  I don’t care a bit about fortune.  I thought I did once, but I have changed all that.’

‘Because this scoundrel has talked sedition to you.’

’He is not a scoundrel, papa, and he has not talked sedition.  I don’t know what sedition is.  I thought it meant treason, and I’m sure he is not a traitor.  He has made me love him, and I shall be true to him.’

Hereupon Sir Marmaduke began almost to weep.  There came first a half-smothered oath and then a sob, and he walked about the room, and struck the table with his fist, and rubbed his bald head impatiently with his hand.  ‘Nora,’ he said, ’I thought you were so different from this!  If I had believed this of you, you never should have come to England with Emily.’

‘It is too late for that now, papa.’

’Your mamma always told me that you had such excellent ideas about marriage.’

‘So I have, I think,’ said she, smiling.

’She always believed that you would make a match that would be a credit to the family.’

’I tried it, papa, the sort of match that you mean.  Indeed I was mercenary enough in what I believed to be my views of life.  I meant to marry a rich man if I could, and did not think much whether I should love him or not.  But when the rich man came—­’

‘What rich man?’

‘I suppose mamma has told you about Mr Glascock.’