"You have been inconsistent, too, because you did not even employ your usual ruthless methods of doing what you pleased with them. You have simply drifted into allowing this vile creature's cobwebs to cling on to your whole existence until you are almost paralyzed, and it seems to me that an immediate marriage with someone else is your only way of escape. Such a waste of your life! Just analyze the position. You have everything in the world, this glorious place--an old name--money--prestige--and if your inclinations do run to the material side of things instead of the intellectual, they are still successful in their demonstration. No one has a better eye for a horse, or is a finer shot. The best at driven grouse for your age, my boy, I have ever seen. You are full of force, Michael, and ought to do some decent thing--instead of which you spoil the whole outlook by fooling after this infernal woman--and you have not now the pluck to cut the Gordian knot. She will drag you to the lowest depths----" Then he laughed. "And only think of that voice in one's ears all day long! I would rather marry old Bessie at the South Lodge. She is eighty-four, she tells me, and would soon leave you a widower." The first ray of hope shot into Michael's bright blue eyes--and he exclaimed with a kind of joy, as he seized Binko, his bulldog, by his fat, engaging throat: "Bessie! Old Bessie--By Jove, what an idea!--the very thing. She'd do it for me like a shot, dear old body!" Binko gurgled and slobbered in sympathy. "She would be kind to you, too, Binko. She would not say she found your hairs on every chair, and that you dribbled on her dress! She would not tell your master that he left his cigarette-ash about, and she hated the smell of smoke! She would not want this room for her boudoir, she----" Then he stopped his flow of words, suddenly catching sight of the whimsical, sardonic smile upon his friend's face. "Oh, Lord!" he mumbled, contritely. "I had forgotten you were here, Henry. I am so jolly upset." "This heartlessness about poor Maurice has finished you, eh?" Mr. Fordyce suggested. He felt he might be gaining his end. Michael covered his face with his hands. "It seems so ghastly to think of marriage with the poor chap not yet dead--I am fairly knocked over--it really is the last straw--but she will cry and make a scene--and she has certainly arguments--and it will make one feel such a cad to leave her."