"Do you mean to say that you--that you will not bestow any portion whatever upon your daughter when she marries?" asked Sir Philip, in a tone of cold astonishment. "I'm sorry that I can't do it," said the major. "I wish I could. If that lost money of mine would only turn up----" "Then, I am afraid, I--cannot say what I had come to say," returned Sir Philip, with the air of a man who deliberates aloud, and quite ignoring the major's interrupted sentence. "I could not advise my son to settle upon the few hundreds a-year that make up his present income." "Why, it's abundance," cried the candid major. "You have just said yourself that young people cannot expect to begin as they will end. Your son's is a rising income: if he makes seven-hundred this year, he may expect to make ten next, and double the seven the year after. It is ample to begin upon, Sir Philip." "No," dissented Sir Philip. "Neither he nor I would consider it so. Something should be put by for a rainy day. This communication has completely taken me by surprise, Major Raynor. We took it for granted that your daughter would at least add her quota to the income: had it been only three or four hundred a-year. Without money of her own, there could be no settlement on her, you see, my son's not being real property." The major was growing a little heated. He did not at all like the turn the conversation was taking, or Sir Philip's dictatorial tone. "Well, you hear, Sir Philip, that Alice has nothing. Those who wish to take her, must take her as she is--portionless--or not at all." Sir Philip Stane rose. "I am sorry, then, major, that I cannot ask what I was about to ask for--herself. Your daughter----" "You are not wanted to ask it, sir," hotly interrupted the major. "The fact of your daughter's being portionless debars it," quietly went on the knight. "I am very sorry indeed to have troubled you, and subjected myself to pain. William must consider his pretensions at an end." "They are at an end," fired the major. "If it is money he has been thinking of all this time, he ought to be ashamed of himself for a calculating, mercenary young rascal. Were he to come to me on his knees, after this, begging for my daughter, he should not have her. That's my answer, Sir Philip Stane, and you can take it away with you." The major's tug at the bell-rope sent a peal echoing through the house. But Sir Philip Stane's hand was already on the door-handle, letting himself out with a short "good-morning." Away went the major, hunting for Alice. He found her with her mother. Hotly and explosively he gave an account of the interview; of what he called the mercenary conduct of Sir Philip and William Stane. Poor Alice turned hot and cold: red and white by turns. She took the indignity--as she was pleased to think it--quite as resentfully as the major. "I forbid you to have anything to do with him after this, Alice. I forbid you to see him again."