"I suppose I shall make an ass of myself again and again, but at any rate I'll work," he said, and put behind him the mocking memory of Henry encountering the Law Reports in full career. _Retro Satanas!_ He would work--even though the farce succeeded! CHAPTER XXVI RATHER ROMANTIC! Marie Sarradet's decision had been hastened by a train of events and circumstances which might have been devised expressly to precipitate the issue. The chain started with a letter from Mrs. Veltheim, in which the good lady announced her intention of paying her brother a visit. Mr. Sarradet was nothing loth; he was still poorly, and thought his sister's company and conversation would cheer him up. Marie took a radically opposite view. She knew Aunt Louisa! A persevering bloodhound she was! Once her nose was on the trail, she never gave up. Her nose had scented Arthur Lisle's attentions; she would want to know what had become of them and of him--when, and why, and whither they had taken themselves off. The question arose then--how to evade Aunt Louisa? It was answered pat--fortune favours the brave, and Sidney Barslow was, both in love and in war, audacious--by a letter from that gentleman. For ten days he and Raymond had walked hard from place to place. Now they proposed to make their headquarters at Bettws-y-Coed for the rest of the trip. "It's done Raymond simply no end of good. He'll be another man by the time we come back. You must want a change too! Why not come down and join us for ten days, and see if Amabel won't come with you? I believe she would. We'd have a rare time--Snowdon, and Beddgelert, and the Hound, and all the rest of it. This is a very romantic spot, with a picturesque stream and surrounded by luxuriantly wooded cliffs and hills----" Hullo! That was odd from Sidney Barslow, and must have cost him no small effort! Marie smiled over the effusion. "Oh, he got it out of the guide-book!" she reflected. But it was very significant of what Sidney thought appropriate to his situation. She mentioned the plan to the old man. He was eager in its favour. The more his own vigour waned, the more he held out his arms to the strong man who had saved his son and who seemed sent by heaven to save his business. To him he would give his daughter with joy and confidence. That the great end of marriages was to help family fortunes was an idea no less deeply enrooted in his _bourgeois_ blood than in the august veins of the House of Austria itself. In favouring a match with Arthur Lisle he had not departed from it; at that time the only thing the family had seemed to lack was gentility--which Arthur would supply. But what was gentility beside solvency? He had been compelled to sell securities! He was all for a man of business now. "Go, my dear, and take Amabel with you, if she'll go. I'll stand treat for both of you." In spite of those vanished securities! "Pops is keen!" thought Marie, smiling to herself.