"That scoundrel Burley tipped my father off about us, and as a result, the old man is half out of his wits. He is determined that my marriage with Marjorie shall not fall through, for the one terror of his life is that of disobliging Mr. Armstrong. In what form the word was passed along the line, I don’t know. But they were at me, one and all, day and night, giving me a hundred and one sly intimations of the general satisfaction that would follow the much desired event. The pressure got to be unbearable." He said that the older people had left no stone unturned to bring the Armstrong-Fontaine alliance to pass. Pacing the floor restlessly, he spoke of the delicate hints, the veiled references, the consummate skill with which he and Marjorie were engineered into tete-a-tetes. Could Janet picture him alone with Marjorie, and the resultant sessions of sweet, silent thought? Had she any idea of what the imperious will of Armstrong’s daughter could do in the way of maneuvering a man into the most difficult situations? Janet had little difficulty in calling up an image of the stately brunette with lustrous dark hair, patrician nose, and sulky, discontented mouth. This imposing young lady had impressed herself indelibly upon Janet’s mind at the Mineola Aerodrome, and, such are the unfathomable processes of sex, Janet profoundly pitied Claude. She did this without a suspicion that he might be drawing generously upon his imagination for the sake of that very pity of hers, which she gave him so divinely. Nor did it occur to her that there were few young men in all New York who would have been in unrelieved misery if Marjorie Armstrong had set her cap at them. As a matter of fact, Claude quite omitted to mention that he had gone to Huntington with more than a vague notion of finding out whether he and Marjorie couldn’t hit it off together, after all; also that, if Marjorie, with all her eagerness to capture him, had not so plainly exposed her design of "bossing" the marriage after it had taken place—well, then— What he did say, was: "Of course, I was left quite free to do as I pleased. Oh, quite free. They wouldn’t lead the horse to water—not they, that would be brutal coercion—they would simply make it drink." This irony expressed the full truth. Claude had virtually given his father a promise not to marry Janet. But Mr. Fontaine senior put no faith in vows that were subject to the stresses and strains of love. Mistrustful of his son’s infatuation and also of the unknown quantity of Janet’s ambition, he did not scruple to adopt any tactical measure by which the union of the Armstrong-Fontaine forces might be achieved. "What do you mean to do?" asked Janet, greatly troubled. "What _can_ I do? What can _any_ prisoner do? Run away, I suppose." "What—without me?"