“The coarse brute,” muttered Lawrence, as he stood without the doors of the granite palace. “The soul of a ham-seller, of a pig-sticker.” And he took out his handkerchief and affectedly wiped the hand which Hooper had shaken. “Always a nasty business, this, of American upstarts buying into our nobility. If they weren’t a lot of callous traders and money-grabbers they couldn’t do it. And they usually negotiate at first hand, so that they can drive a closer bargain. And their best society, too! Beastly country--no wonder the women want to be traded out of it into civilisation.” XVIII There was a family council at the Hoopers’ after luncheon that day--Mr. Hooper, his wife, and Jeanne. The two women followed Hooper from the dining room into his study, where he was pulling sullenly at his cigar and awaiting the attack. It was his wife who began: “Do you know why Lord Frothingham sent word he couldn’t come to lunch, pa? Jenny here is worried about it.” Mr. Hooper grunted. Finally he said: “I’m willing to do anything in reason to please Jenny. I don’t approve of this title business. It ain’t American. But as long as the young fellow has turned her head I was not disposed to stand in the way.” He frowned fiercely. “But I tell you flat, I won’t be held up! And that fellow he sent here this morning was a plain highwayman.” Mrs. Hooper and Jeanne looked significantly each at the other--they had had many talks about his growing stinginess, and they suspected him at once. “What did he want?” inquired Mrs. Hooper. “I don’t propose to talk this thing over before Jenny. It’s disgraceful that she should have gone into such a business. It ain’t right that she should know about such things.” Jeanne’s eyes filled with tears. “And I’ve told all the girls!” she exclaimed. “Everybody knows it. I can’t back out now. The whole town’d be laughing at us. I’d be ashamed ever to show my face in the street again. You don’t want to break my heart, do you, pa?” “You’ve made a sweet mess of it!” snarled her father. “You ought to have had better sense than to have told anybody till the business side of it was settled. I warned your ma about that--I knew what was coming. Now, here you two’ve gone and given him the whip hand!” “She got at the telephone before she told me,” said Mrs. Hooper.