‘Well, that’s halfway,’ answered the widower, with a satisfied air. ‘You begin with respect, you’ll get on to love before you know where you are. I’m proud to say I’ve always made myself respected everywhere. I’ve kept my sack upright. Twenty shillings in the pound has been my guiding star. Go on respecting me, Bella. You’ll wake up some morning and find that respect has blossomed into love.’ Here Mr. Piper put his arm round Bella’s waist. She found that it would not do to temporize. ‘Dear Mr. Piper,’ she said, putting on that pretty beseeching manner which stood in such good stead with her on most occasions, ‘you are all that is kind and generous, but indeed it can never be.’ ‘What can never be?’ ‘I can never be your wife. I will not speak of the disparity in our ages, because----’ ‘Because that’s rubbish,’ interrupted the impatient Piper. ‘You’d better be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave. I know what the young men of the present day are. Between you and I and the post they’re an uncommon bad lot. You’d better think twice before you refuse such an offer as mine, Beller. It isn’t every pretty girl that gets such a chance once in her life. Don’t you expect to get it twice. Just you think who it is you’re refusing. I could buy up everybody for ten miles round Little Yafford. I’m not a man to boast of the money I’ve made. Everybody knows what I am at Great Yafford--and further afield. My name on the back of a bill is as good as the Bank of England. Look at this place. I could buy it to-morrow, if I liked--and if you say “buy it, Piper,” I’ll buy it, and place you as ’igh as any of the old county famblies. Sir Philip Dulcimer don’t care for the place. It’s me that has made it what it is. Look at the furniture and ornaments I’ve bought, to please poor Mrs. Piper--this very ottermon we’re sitting on, five-and-thirty pound, the newest thing out. You’d better think twice--and a good many times twice--before you turn up your nose at such an offer as mine. I’ll allow you three hundred a year for dress and fallals. Yes--settle it upon you in black and white--and that’s a deal more than ever I did for poor Moggie. She had to ask me for a ten-pound note when she wanted it.’ Bella gave a faint shiver. Three hundred a year for pocket-money! What fabulous wealth it seemed! But three hundred a year with Mr. Piper--to have that warm puffiness, that blustering vulgarity, always in attendance upon her--to be called Beller all her life--to see across the domestic hearth that odious figure of low-born merit and commercial prosperity! No, it would be too dreadful. She could not bear it. She was fond of money--nay, she loved it with the ravenous love that often comes of a poverty-stricken youth. If she had never known Cyril Culverhouse--never set her affections on that high type of manhood--she might, perhaps, have brought herself to tolerate Mr. Piper, for the sake of Little Yafford Park and unlimited drapery. But now--oh! it was impossible.