There was a light in the library beyond. His father was there, taking advantage, no doubt, of the midnight lull to read the evening newspapers. The social activities of the Smith-Parvises gave him but little opportunity to read the evening papers prior to the appearance of the morning papers. "What is the bally rush?" went on the young man, slipping out of his fur-lined overcoat and leaving it pendant in the hands of the footman. Miss Emsdale, after responding to his hushed "hello" in an equally subdued tone, had started up the stairs. "It is very late, Mr. Smith-Parvis. Good night." "Never too late to mend," he said, and was supremely well-satisfied with what a superior intelligence might have recorded as a cryptic remark but what, to him, was an awfully clever "come-back." He had spent three years at Oxford. No beastly American college for him, by Jove! Overcoming a cultivated antipathy to haste,--which he considered the lowest form of ignorance,--he bounded up the steps, three at a time, and overtook her midway to the top. "I say, Miss Emsdale, I saw you come in, don't you know. I couldn't believe my eyes. What the deuce were you doing out with that common--er--chauffeur? D'you mean to say that you are running about with a chap of that sort, and letting him--" "If you _please_, Mr. Smith-Parvis!" interrupted Miss Emsdale coldly. "Good night!" "I don't mean to say you haven't the _right_ to go about with any one you please," he persisted, planting himself in front of her at the top of the steps. "But a common chauffeur--Well, now, 'pon my word, Miss Emsdale, really you might just as well be seen with Peasley down there." "Peasley is out of the question," said she, affecting a wry little smile, as of self-pity. "He is tooken, as you say in America. He walks out with Bessie, the parlour-maid." "Walks out? Good Lord, you don't mean to say you'd--but, of course, you're spoofing me. One never knows how to take you English, no matter how long one may have lived in England. But I am serious. You cannot afford to be seen running around nights with fellows of that stripe. Rotten bounders, that's what I call 'em. Ever been out with him before?" "Often, Mr. Smith-Parvis," she replied calmly. "I am sure you would like him if you knew him better. He is really a very--" "Nonsense! He is a good chauffeur, I've no doubt,--Lawrie Carpenter says he's a treasure, but I've no desire to know him any better. And I don't like to think of you knowing him quite as well as you do, Miss Emsdale. See what I mean?" "Perfectly. You mean that you will go to your mother with the report that I am not a fit person to be with the children. Isn't that what you mean?" "Not at all. I'm not thinking of the kids. I'm thinking of myself. I'm pretty keen about you, and--" "Aren't you forgetting yourself, Mr. Smith-Parvis?" she demanded curtly. "Oh, I know there'd be a devil of a row if the mater ever dreamed that I--Oh, I say! Don't rush off in a huff. Wait a--"