Sir Thomas opened his eyes wide. “Ah, I see! you took what I said _au pied de la lettre_,” he said, with languid contempt. Now the executor was little experienced in the French or any foreign tongue, and he did not know what the foot of the letter meant. He cried, “Oh, no, not at all!” apologetically, shocked by his own boldness; and went away bewildered all round, and much troubled in his mind about the stability of the Rainy estate. Mr. Chervil was the most honorable of trustees--his own interest had nothing at all to do with his opposition. But prodigality in business matters was, to him, the master sin, above all those of the Decalogue. There was, indeed, no commandment there which ordained, “Thou shalt not waste thy money, or give it injudiciously away.” But Mr. Chervil felt that this was a mere oversight on the part of the great lawgiver, and one which prudent persons had a right to amend on their own account. Mr. Chervil, who here felt an unexpressed confidence that he was better informed (on matters of business) than the Almighty, was very sure that he knew a great deal better than old Trevor. He scouted the old man’s ideas as preposterous. That craze of his about _giving it back_ was evident madness. Give it back! the thing to be done was exactly the contrary. He himself knew the way of doubling every pound, and building up the great Rainy fortune into proportions colossal and magnificent. But he did not think of any advantage to himself in all this. He was quite content that it should be the little sedate figure of the girl which should be raised, ever higher and higher into the blazing heaven of wealth upon that golden pedestal, heaped with new and ever-renewed ingots. And not only was this, his ambition, perfectly honest, but there was even in a way something visionary in it, an ideal, something that stood in the place of poetry and art to Mr. Chervil. It was his way of identifying the highest good, the most perfect beauty.