“Oh yes,” he snarled, “_I_ know your quiet, wicked little country village, with the devil peeping behind the hedges and finding plenty for an idle young man to do. Villages are pestilential traps, swarming with pretty girls. Just the place where Owen will fall into the worst scrape of all--matrimony. He is a good-looking chap; they’ll all be after him!” “I don’t believe there’s a woman in Ottinge under forty, and I never saw a more hard-featured lot--never. You know I stayed in the neighbourhood with the Davenants years ago.” “Another thing--no one can take Owen for anything but a gentleman!” and Sir Richard put up his glasses and surveyed his niece, with an air as much as to say, “There’s a poser!” “Oh yes. He has only to show his hands, worn with manual labour, and I’ll tell him to grow his hair long, wear gaudy ties, and hold his tongue.” “Well, have your own way! But, as sure as I’m a living sinner, harm will come of this mad idea; it’s nothing more or less than play-acting. He’d much better have gone on the stage when he was about it.” “Unfortunately, there’s one objection,--it is the most precarious of all professions; for an amateur it would be hard work and _no_ pay. In five years Owen might, with great luck, be earning thirty shillings a week. Oh, I’ve thought over no end of plans, I can assure you, Uncle Dick, and the chauffeur scheme is by far the most promising.” “Of course you always get the better of me in _talk_; but I’ve my own opinion. You and Owen will make a fine hash of his affairs between you. Bear in mind that I won’t have the Wynyard name made little of in a stinking garage. He is not to use it, or to let any one know he is a Wynyard, and that’s flat; and you can tell him that, as sure as he takes service as Owen Wynyard, I’ll marry--and to that I stick!” and with this announcement, and a very red face, he snatched up his hat and departed. Sir Martin Kesters, on the other hand, saw nothing derogatory in his brother-in-law’s employment, and warmly applauded the scheme. At twenty-six Owen should be learning independence; moreover, it was his wife’s plan, and, in his opinion, everything she said or did was right. “I think it’s a sound scheme,” he said. “If money is wanted, Leila, you know where to get it.” “No, no; Owen has a little, and he must not touch a halfpenny that he has not earned--it’s in the bond; and he will have nothing to spend money on down there. I don’t believe there’s a billiard-table or a pack of cards in the place.” “The typical hamlet, eh? Half a dozen cottages, a pump, and an idiot--poor devil!” “Owen or the idiot?” “Both. All the same, Leila, I feel sure that, now you’ve taken Owen in hand, he will come out on top.” Wynyard fell in with everything, without question or argument, and cheerfully accepted his sister’s arrangements, with the exception of the ties. He drew the line at an orange satin with green spots, or even a blue with scarlet horse-shoes.