"I am glad of this opportunity," he said, in a formal and measured fashion. "You say you have become a woman; and it is natural you should begin and think for yourself; hitherto I have treated you as a child, and you have obeyed and believed implicitly. As for your immediate wish, I may say at once that is impossible. There is no kind of work for which you are fitted—even if I were prepared to live on your earnings, which I am not. The stage? What could you do on the stage! Do you think an actress is made at a moment’s notice? Or a dress-maker either? How could you turn dressmaker to-morrow?—because you can hem handkerchiefs? And as for making use of your education, do you know of the thousands of girls whose French and Italian and music are as good as yours, and who can barely gain their food by teaching?——" He altered his tone; and spoke more proudly. "But what I say is this, that you do not understand, you have not yet understood, my position. When George Bethune condescends to accept assistance, as you call it, he receives no favour, he confers an honour. I know my rights, and stand on them; yes, and I know my wrongs—and how trifling the compensations ever likely to be set against them. You spoke of Lord Musselburgh; but Lord Musselburgh—a mushroom peer—the representative of a family dragged from nothingness by James VI.—Lord Musselburgh knew better than you—well he knew—that he was honouring himself in receiving into his house a Bethune of Balloray. And as for his granting me assistance, that was his privilege, his opportunity, his duty. Should not I have done the like, and gladly, if our positions had been reversed? _Noblesse oblige_. I belong to his order—and to a family older by centuries than his. If there was a favour conferred to-day at Musselburgh House, it was not on my shoulders that it fell." He spoke haughtily, and yet without anger; and there was a ring of sincerity in his tones that could not be mistaken. The girl sate silent and abashed. "No," said he, in the same proud fashion; "during all my troubles, and they have been more numerous than you know or need ever know, I have never cowered, or whimpered, or abased myself before any living being. I have held my head up. My conscience is clear towards all men. ’Stand fast, Craig-Royston!’ it has been with me—and shall be!" He went to the window and shut it.