“Yes. And it’s particularly hard to force money out of me, too, though I’m not stingy, my dear. But I must say, if you had meant to do it, you couldn’t have invented anything more ingenious, or more successful. I couldn’t allow a couple of young Lauderdales to go begging. They’d have pictures of me in the evening papers, you know. And apart from that, I’m devilish fond of you--I mean I’m very fond of you--you must excuse an old bachelor’s English, sometimes. But you won’t take the money, so that settles it. Then there’s no other way but for Jack to go to work like a man and stick to it. To give him a salary for doing no work would be just the same as to give him money without making any pretence about it. He can have a desk at my lawyer’s, or he can go back to Beman Brothers’,--just as he prefers. If he’ll do that, and honestly try to understand what he’s doing, he shan’t regret it. If he’ll do what there is to be done, I’ll make him succeed. I could make him succeed if he had ‘failure’ written all over him in letters a foot high--because it’s within the bounds of possibility. But it’s of no use to ask me to do what’s not possible. I can’t make this country over again. I can’t create a convenient, active, out-of-door career at a good salary, when the thing doesn’t exist. In other words, I can’t work miracles, and he won’t take money, so he must content himself to run on lines of possibility. My lawyer would do most things for me, and so would Beman Brothers. Beman, to please me, would make Jack a partner, as he has done for Ham Bright. But Jack must either work or put in capital, and he has no capital to put in, and won’t take any from me. And to be a partner in a law firm, a man must have some little experience--something beyond his bare degree. Do you see it all now, Katharine?” “Indeed, I do,” she answered, with a little sigh. “And meanwhile--uncle Robert--meanwhile--” “Yes--I know--you’re married. That’s the very devil, that marriage business.” He seemed to be thinking it over. There was something so innocently sincere in his strong way of putting it that Katharine could not help smiling, even in her distress. But she waited for him to speak, foreseeing what he would say, and did. “There’s nothing for it,” he said, at last. “You won’t take money, and you can’t live with your mother, and as for telling your father at this stage--well, you know him! It really wouldn’t be safe. So there’s nothing for it but--I hate to say it, my dear,” he added kindly. “But to keep it a secret, you mean,” she said sadly. “You see,” he answered, in a tone that was almost apologetic, “it would be a mistake, socially, to say you were married, and to go on living each with your own family--besides, your father would know it like everybody else. He’d make your life very--unbearable, I should think.” “Yes--he would. I know that.”