"And she seemed to get on with you?" "Famously. Flirty little thing." "Of course there will be others after her, George. You must lose no time." "I haven't time to lose, my good aunt. Poor devils in Stock Exchange offices can't call their souls their own. I must get back next week. Luckily I only had a week in August, or I should not have been here now." "You poor, ill-used individual! Do you mean that you must actually and positively return to your slavery at the risk of losing what would emancipate you from it forever? It can't be, George. It simply must not be. Your uncle must make up some excuse----" "My uncle Thomas is a great man on his native heath, no doubt, Aunt Laura--but he hardly carries the same weight on the Stock Exchange. No, I must go when the day comes. When Duty calls Love must obey. And it's no use casting away the substance for the shadow. And--and I could think of a dozen other wise sayings _a propos_, but it all comes to this, I've got eight days clear--I'm wound up now like an eight-day clock--and can make my running steadily till these are out. Then, if----" "You could come down again?" "If it were worth it, yes." He smoked thoughtfully and proceeded. "It does seem a chance, and I'm awfully grateful to you and all that for providing it. But supposing the widow is not to be caught, and who's to tell? She knows her own value, you bet--I should be up a tree if I had had a row with the Koellners. I don't want to fall between two stools, you know." It ended in this, that he was to present himself at Boldero Abbey on the following day, armed with an excuse; and that, as things developed, further counsel as to further progression should be taken. It was left to Sir Thomas to cast a damper over their hopes. He was not told about them, but he would have been a simpleton indeed if he had not seen for himself--neither his wife nor nephew being wary conspirators,--and directly he was alone with the former, he spoke out with conjugal frankness. "You think yourself mighty clever? Look out. You have old Boldero to deal with." "But, my dear, Leonore is quite independent of her father." "A child like that is never independent. The more money she has, the sharper he will look after it." "If she chooses to marry again----" "Now look here, Laura, if Godfrey Stubbs' widow chooses to marry again, she may marry anybody. _Anybody_, d'ye take me? Is it likely she'd take George? Who's George? What's George? An eighth son, and nothing at that. Not even clever or good-looking." "Oh, he _is_ good-looking." "Hanged if he is. Anyhow he's not a half nor a quarter as good-looking as Valentine Purcell. And what's more, though he is my nephew, he is not so much of a gentleman as poor Val is." Lady Butts, however, stood to her guns. "What girl in her senses would marry that creature?"