“My dear! My beloved! My dear, dear Betty! Of course I love you! You and Maisie are all I have in the world--and it’s mostly you!--Oh, I know I’ve been a fool! I’ve thought only of my selfish ambition. But, dear, try me again! I’ll be so much kinder to you, so much more thoughtful.--And we’ll forget all this. Never remember it. I won’t even ask you the man’s name.” She half-raised her head from his shoulder, swallowed tearfully. “There--there wasn’t any man!” she said, and broke down again into a passion of sobs that would not cease. * * * * * * As he expected, the young man was waiting for him. Maisie was waiting also, standing very tall and rigid by the window, in all the dignity of youth measuring swords with the parental generation. He thought, as he came into the centre of the room, how like her mother she was--her mother twenty years ago, when she had faced _her_ father. He nearly smiled at the remembrance, checked himself with a thought of the matter in hand. This, of course, was quite different! The young man rose to meet him. They shook hands with the amount of stiffness proper to the occasion. He found himself suddenly wishing that Betty were here, after all. He had been hasty in telling her to keep out of the way. She could handle Maisie more tactfully than he could. Very reasonable woman, Betty--she had seen his point of view at once. These thoughts passed swiftly through his mind as he invited the young man to a chair, seated himself. There was an awkward silence. He and the young man broke it at the same instant. “You wanted to speak to me----?” “I think you understand, sir----” Both stopped likewise at the same instant to make way for the other, and both failed to recommence. Maisie stepped forward impatiently, stood between them, towering superbly. “I don’t see why you want all this icy ceremony, both of you,” she said scornfully. She turned to her father. “Jim wants to marry me, Father--and I want to marry Jim. And that’s all there is to it!” “Indeed!” He raised his eyebrows in mild sarcasm. “I wonder you thought it necessary to inform me of such a trifling matter.” “We thought it better to tell you.” Maisie was cheerfully unscathed. “Much obliged, I am sure. I’m very interested. I expect you will both of you want to marry lots more people before you’ve finished. I shall always be willing to lend a sympathetic ear when you care to tell me of the latest.” “Father!” broke out Maisie indignantly. He felt that he had scored. “This is serious!” “It always is,” he said philosophically. “And you, young man? I suppose you are burning to add your testimony of the solemnity of this occasion to Maisie’s?” He felt that if he could only keep it up on this tone he was safe. Maisie was apt to be so damnably stubborn and unmanageable once he failed to maintain superiority. As for the young man--well, of course, he was only a young man. He could soon manage _him_!