“I’m not so sure of that,” he replied harshly. “I think your mother must have chuckled to herself at finding that she could catch the father if she couldn’t land the more sophisticated son. She thought she was taking revenge on me. Those are nice things you have”--his eye swept her gown--“and if your mother has gone abroad it’s a fair assumption that she tapped the Craighill till pretty soon after the wedding--if not just before!” “You have no right to make such insinuations. It’s infamous. I don’t intend that you shall insult me under this roof.” “Under this roof!” he mocked. “Oh, I understand that it’s yours; that when your father dies it will belong to you; but while he lives it’s my shelter, it’s my home; the first, Wayne, that I ever had.” He studied her with a puzzled look in his eyes. He had thought he knew her; that out of his earlier knowledge he could readily establish a new tie. The thought of this had filled his mind from the moment he had recognized her photograph at his father’s table. “What I ask you for, Wayne, what I beg you to give me, is my chance. I have never had it yet. I have been hawked about and offered in a good many markets. I might have been married to you if mama had not counted too little on your sanity and tried to get money out of you before she had you well hooked. It is possible that I was a little--just a little slow at the game. I let you escape--I could have held you if I had wanted to--and I suffered for it afterward. You may be sure she punished me for that.” “I dare say she did,” he muttered, watching her. “If it hadn’t been that I really cared for you, Wayne, I think I should have gone ahead. You thought you were eluding me; the fact is that I precipitated that row myself to give you your chance to get away. The mater wanted to follow you into the courts; I stopped that by burning your letters and declining to give any aid.” “Ha! my benefactress, you are discovered!”