"I hardly think I do. I think I know you pretty well. Dora seems to think she knows you even better." Now I began to see his drift. "Townsend, what do you think of Dora?" "I have sometimes feared, sir, that I have thought of her too much." "Indeed." The word, as it came from between his lips, was a gently murmured sneer. "I should not have imagined that you were that kind of man. Townsend, would you like to marry?" "It has been my constant dream." "Has it? And about Lily Langdale and others?" What did he know about Lily, and the rest of them? I would have given something to have learned just how much the old sleuth-hound did know about everything or anything. I felt all the time that he had me at a strong advantage. When I am in his presence I always do feel like that. "You yourself, sir, have been a bachelor." "True--I have. I take it, Townsend, that when you marry you will cease to be a bachelor." "Undoubtedly." "What would you say to ten thousand pounds a-year?" "Sir!" "When Dora marries she will have that income to commence with. Should her marriage prove a happy one, it will be increased." He paused, as if for me to speak. I deemed silence to be the better part of wisdom. "The man who marries Dora will have to have a clean slate, if it has to be cleaned for the occasion. I shall require him to give me a correct statement of his position. I will see that his house is set in order. He will have to take my name; Dora shall always be a Jardine. He will have to enter public life." "Public life?" "Have you any objection?" "It depends upon what you mean, sir, by public life; it is an elastic term." "He will have to enter Parliament. Means will be furnished to enable him to do so. As a country gentleman he will have to take an interest in local and in county government. He will have to play a prominent part on the stage of national politics. He will have to aim at the top of the tree. Dora has ambitions; her husband must have them too." When he paused I was silent again. There was a cut-and-dried way about his fashion of settling things which nettled me. "Have you no ambitions, Townsend?" "I have such ambitions as a poor man may have." "A poor man is entitled to have the same ambitions as a rich one--if he is strong enough. I was poor once upon a time. I did not allow my poverty to hamper my ambition. What do you think of the programme which I have drawn up for Dora's husband?" "I think it an alluring one." "For a strong man it has possibilities. You may take it from me that, properly backed, you are strong enough to be able to say, with truth, that few things are beyond your reach." "I think myself that, given the opportunity, I might find the man." "I think so too. You shall have the opportunity. You have heard on what conditions. That is what I wanted to say to you. We shall see you at Cockington at the end of the week. Perhaps, before you leave us, you may have something to say to me."