"Byrne's been here before I was born," said the girl, with dry lips, "so has Mrs. Driscoll. They are part of the place; it would ruin their lives to send them away." "Well," said Pinckney, "I don't want to be the ogre to ruin their lives; you can do anything you like about them. If the new tenant didn't take them, you might pension them. I want you to be perfectly happy in your mind and I want you to feel that though I am, so to speak, the guardian of your money, still, that money is yours." She was beginning to understand now that not only was he striving to soothe her feelings and propitiate her, but that he was very much in earnest in this business, and crowding through her mind came a great wave of revulsion against herself. Phyl's nature was such that whilst always ready to fly into wrath and easily moved to bitter resentment, one touch of kindness, one soft word, had the power to disarm her. One soft word from an antagonist had the power to wound her far more than a dozen words of bitterness. Filled now with absolutely superfluous self-reproach, she stood for a moment unable to speak. Then she said, raising her eyes to his: "I am sure you mean to do what is for the best.--It was stupid of me--" "Not a bit," said the other, cheerfully. "I want to do the things that will make you happy--that's all. I'm a business man and I know the value of money. Money is just worth the amount of happiness it brings." "Faith, that's true," said Hennessey, who had taken his seat again and was in the act of lighting a cigar. "When I was a boy," went on the other. "I was always kept hard up by my father. It was like pulling gum teeth to get the price of a fishing rod out of him. When I think of all the fun I might have bought with a few dollars, it makes me wild. You can't buy fun when you get old; you may buy an opera house or a yacht, but you can't buy the real stuff that makes life worth living." Phyl glanced out of the window at the park, then as though she had found some inspiration there, she turned to Pinckney. "If you don't mind about the money, then why don't you let me live here instead of letting the place? I can live here by myself and I would be happy here. I won't be happy if I leave it." "Well," said Pinckney, "there's your father's wish, first of all." "I'm sure if he knew how I felt, he wouldn't mind," said Phyl mournfully, turning her gaze again to the park. "On top of that," went on Pinckney, "there's--your age. Phyl, it wouldn't ever do; it's not I that am saying it, it's custom, the world, society." Phyl, like the hooked salmon that has taken the gaudy fly, felt a check and recognised that a Power had her in hand, recognised in the light-going and fair-speaking Pinckney something of adamant, a will not to be broken or bent.