“_Glad!_” she repeats, dragging out the word a little, to give herself time to find the right phrase of tactful truth. “Haven’t I always been glad that I was to be part and parcel of you both? My gladness is no shoddy new thing.” He looks at her captiously, the unhappy bent of his disposition causing him to feel a half-distrust of the candid eyes and the honest voice that yet always bring a warmth about his heart. “If Rupert does not marry you, he will probably marry some one else,” he growls. “And between you and me, I cannot quite depend on his taste!” It is said with no wounding intention. Never would it have occurred to the father that any one could take exception against him for making disparaging comments on his own son of his body begotten; but used as she is to them, never does Lavinia fail to protest. “I like his taste,” she answers pleasantly and gallantly. “He thinks me very good-looking.” But her companion’s thought stumps undistracted by her playfulness along its own track, as doggedly as his feet along the bridle-path. “I am not difficult to get on with,” he says, in a _naïf_ unconsciousness of his own corners which makes his niece throttle a smile. “No one can deny that I am easy to live with; but I could not answer for myself if he sprang upon me some demi-rep from a music-hall or some screeching platform woman. I declare to goodness”--lashing himself up into unreasonable anger--“it seems an odd thing for a father to say, but I know so little of the fellow--of what goes on inside him--that I could not say, if I were to be shot for it, which alternative is the more likely one.” It would be perfectly useless to tell him that it is he himself who has crushed the power of confidence out of his son; and the desire to impart the information to him is at once stamped upon by Lavinia. All that is left of it escapes in a patient sigh, and the little dry sentence-- “I should say that they were about equally probable.” “I have a still better reason for wishing to see you coupled together,” continues Sir George, a little appeased, though not in the least, suspecting the exercise of self-control that has tightened Lavinia’s lips, and strengthened her grip upon Geist’s lead. “If you do not marry _my_ boy, of course you will never rest till you marry some one else’s.” “Never rest till I marry some one else’s!” repeats she, indignantly, all her virgin pride up in arms; but in a second her wrath falls, vanquished by native sweetness, and by a long and sore acquaintance with the properties of Uncle George’s jokes. To-day it is not quite a joke. It is the vehicle for a real apprehension. She is paid for her self-government in a ready money which does not often distinguish the discharge of debts to virtue.