"I don't intend to marry the family. I should allow the mother--not a bad sort at all. I'm fond of her--a hundred a year, to shut the shop up. I should--" "Nonsense! The idea is ridiculous; monstrous. Get married if you must, but take a girl of your own position in life. Easy enough to find--" "I don't care a hang about position!" "Then, more fool you. But if you don't, at least marry a woman that has honest blood in her veins--for your children's sake." Reggie turned away his head sulkily. "The Days were good enough for me before they fell into trouble," he said. His brother lifted his head and squared his shoulders, standing up tall and imposing before the empty grate. "William Day was never good enough for me," he said. "I don't see that a girl is to be made to suffer all her life because her father was not good enough for you," Reggie said sulkily. "Try not to be an ass, my dear fellow. You don't suppose you can be allowed to do a mad thing like this without my telling you what I think of it. You know, I have never had much opinion of your judgment--except, perhaps, in the matter of horses; but in your admiration for this Miss Day your taste is to my thinking astoundingly bad. I call her a commonplace, almost vulgar young woman." "Vulgar? _Vulgar!_" "She is pretentious, she is affected, she is gushing--what is that but to be vulgar? She is not even pretty--" "Not pretty!" Reggie cried, and started up from his chair. "Not pretty! Deleah Day!" "Deleah! The young one?" "I've been telling you so, all along, haven't I? Who did you think it was?" "It was the other, when we spoke of the Days before," Sir Francis reminded him, but flatly, and his face had fallen. Here was more serious matter. Not that flaunting extravagant queen, not Bessie with her plump prettiness, her cheap wiles, her nets that were spread in the sight of man; but Deleah, the dainty, charmingly pretty child. The marriage would be none the less hideously undesirable on the social side, and from the point of view of the family; but it would be infinitely more difficult to stop. Sir Francis, in his widowed estate, with twenty years more of experience on his head, was yet not so old but that he could picture how deeply, how dangerously in love a young man of his brother's age could imagine himself with Deleah Day. Reggie was recalling attention to himself by a loud snort of contempt. "I'm not very likely to have thought of Bessie when Deleah was on the spot," he said. "Except that the younger sister has a more attractive appearance, all the objections remain the same in either case." "The Days are down-pins, I admit," Reggie said dispassionately; "and the father and brother were rotten; but no one'll think of those things when they look at Deleah. I'm not afraid." Sir Francis contemplated his young brother meditatively. "Let us know precisely how we stand, Reggie. Are you actually engaged to this girl?" "Oh, yes! I'm engaged to her, right enough."