“There’s only one thing makes me want to live a little longer, Arnold,” he continued, “and that is Esther’s future. It would be a great satisfaction to me to see her settled happily before I go. Forgive an old man’s frankness if I say that sometimes I have almost thought you two cared for each other.” “You are quite right in part, sir,” I replied. “I do care for Esther a good deal.” “And she, I am sure, has a very warm feeling for you, Arnold. There is nobody whom I would rather have for Esther’s husband than yourself.” “Well, sir, the fact is, we are not sure that our views are altogether harmonious,” I confessed. “I am, as you know, rather sceptical about the newest views for revolutionizing woman’s status, while Esther—” “Is a full-fledged suffragist and has exalted notions about the race of the future. Tush, my boy! Never hold back proposing marriage because of intellectual differences. The race spirit, sitting up aloft and pulling the strings, is laughing at you.” “But, Sir Spofforth, to be candid, it was not I who held back,” I answered. “Hum! I see!” he answered, nodding his head. Then, very seriously, “My boy, I want you to win her. It would embitter my last days to see my daughter the wife of Herman Lazaroff. I have watched and tried to study him: it isn’t his materialism, Arnold, it’s his infernal will. He’ll break everything and everybody that conflicts with it when he wakes up and knows his powers. Now he doesn’t understand himself at all. He can see nothing interiorly, as good old Swedenborg would say. I tell you, Herman Lazaroff, able fellow as he is, and splendid brain, is a machine of devilish energy, and, unfortunately, fashioned for purely destructive purposes.” Like most old men, he had the habit of falling into soliloquy, and toward the end of his speech his voice dropped, and he spoke rather to himself than to me. Though I remembered his words afterward, at the time I regarded his indictment as the prejudice of an octogenarian. He was in his eightieth year, and there was no doubt his keen mind was failing. I was searching for a reply when Esther and Lazaroff came back from the conservatory. Esther’s face was flushed and she looked utterly miserable. But I was amazed to see the expression upon Lazaroff’s. He was deathly white, and his black eyes seemed to gleam with infernal resolution. At that moment it did occur to me that Sir Spofforth might be wiser in his judgment than I. Lazaroff came forward quietly and sat down, and I tried to make the occasion for conversation. But he, seated motionless and abstracted, seemed hardly to hear me, and rose from his chair after a few moments, looking toward Esther, who was standing near the conservatory entrance. Her brown-colored gown gleamed golden in the lamplight. “Sir Spofforth, Miss Esther is interested in our new freezing-plant,” he said. “I thought, with your permission, that I would take her to see it lit up by electricity. You’ll come too, Pennell?”