"That's beyond your right--but no matter. In that house there is a father who loves his son and who respects himself. The father is miserable and humiliated. Do you recognize any responsibility in yourself for that?" "Lord Fillingford once wanted to marry me--for my money, I think." "I think you do him less than justice. Never mind that. I answer by asking you why he doesn't want to marry you now--even with your money." "A very palpable hit!" said Jenny with a slight smile. "But did you come here only to say things like that? I know you think you have a right to say them--but what's the good?" "The good is if they make you think--and I have a right to say them, though I fear your bitterness made me put them too harshly. If so, I beg your pardon. In whatever way I put them, the facts are there. Father and son are strangers in heart already; very soon they will be enemies if you persist in what you are doing." "What am I doing?" asked Jenny, smiling again. "Evil," he replied uncompromisingly. "Wanton evil if you don't mean to marry this young man--deliberate evil if you do." "Why deliberate evil if I do?" "You have no right to marry the son of that man. It would create a position unnatural, cruel, hideous." "Alison, Alison!" I murmured. I thought that he was now "growing hot." But he took no notice of me--nor did Jenny. "An inevitable and perpetual quarrel between father and son, a perpetual humiliation for a man who trusted you--and was wrong in doing it! Dare you do that--with what there is lying between you and Lord Fillingford?" "What is there?" "At least deceit, broken faith, trust betrayed, honor threatened. Is there no more?" Jenny looked at him now with somber thoughtfulness. "We're not children," he went on. "If there is no more, what was easier than to say so, to lay scandal to rest, to give an account of yourself? Wasn't that easy?" "Lying is generally pretty easy," said Jenny. He raised his hands in the air and let them fall in a despairing gesture. "You yourself have said it!" "Yes, I have said it, Mr. Alison. You've always believed it. Now you know it. We're face to face." "Then face to face I say to you that you're no fit wife for that young man." "No fit companion either, perhaps?" "I'll say no more than I need say. A sinner who repents is a fit companion for the angels, and joyfully welcomed. Haven't you read it? I am on your duty, not to God--I pray Him that He may teach you that--but to the honorable man whom you deceived and humiliated. You charge him with having wanted to marry you for your money. Take it on that basis, if you will. What did you want to marry him for? Was it love? No; his title, his position. Was the exchange unfair? The bargain was fair, if not very pretty. Even to that bargain you were grossly false. If I'm wrong in my facts, say so: but if my facts are right, in very decency let his house--let his son--alone."