"Come and sit down, dear, and let me thrash this out! It is your right to know exactly how matters stand, and I will try to explain them to you. What affects me affects you now, so I look to you to advise and counsel. No one can help me as you can; no one has so much right to speak; so let me begin at the beginning, and try to make all clear to your dear little mind. You know that at my father's death I had to give up my own dream of going into a profession, in order to carry on the Works for the benefit of the family. It had been decided that Frank, the second boy, should take this place, but he was still a youngster, and could not then have taken so responsible a post. It was a blow to me, for it was anything but the sphere which I should have chosen, and it was hard to have to give up all my own dreams--" "It must have been! I can sympathise with you, for I know the feeling. Nothing tries me more than to have my plans upset, and it is constantly happening in a house like this, where there are so many others to consider. And it must have been bad for the business too, for you knew nothing about it, and had no experience--" Ned coloured, and made an uneasy movement with his shoulders. As a matter of fact, his early days of authority had been accompanied by mistakes which he had been glad to forget, though he had mastered the details of the business in a surprisingly short space of time. It was not pleasant to hear a reminder of his inexperience from the lips of his _fiancee_, and he could not stifle a reflection that it would have been kinder on her part to have spared him even so covert a reproach. He tried to hide all signs of annoyance, but there was an edge in his voice as he replied-- "I was inexperienced, no doubt, though perhaps not so much so as you imagine. All my life I had been accustomed to spend a great deal of time at the Works, and as I grew up my father had taken me into his confidence about his growing anxieties, for even in his days he was beginning to feel the strain of competing with the bigger firms. The day for small men is over, Lilias, and one by one the private manufacturers go under, ruined by the struggle to compete with the great firms who are backed by practically unlimited capital. It was a dying cause which I had to fight, and I became more and more convinced of the folly of holding on until everything was lost; and then, in the very nick of time, as it seemed, our most powerful rivals stepped forward and offered to take over our business and to give me the post of manager. There could be no doubt about accepting such an offer, and all my friends rejoiced with me in the belief that the lean days were over, and that a long lease of prosperity lay ahead."