"What! are you going to allow it?" cried Richard. "I tell you he's making play for her." "I shall not interfere," said Mrs Glaire, coldly. "I think Eve ought to have a good husband." "But she's engaged to me!" half-shrieked Richard. "Well," said his mother, coldly, though her heart was beating fast, "you are a man, and should counteract it. This is England, and in English society, little as I have seen of it, I know that engaged girls are not prisoners. They are, to a certain extent, free." "I'll soon stop it," cried Richard, fiercely. "Stop it then, my son, but mind this: I insist upon proper respect being paid to Mr Selwood." "I will," cried Richard, speaking in a deep-pitched voice. "I'll do something." "Then I should take care that my pretensions to her hand were well known," said Mrs Glaire, with a peculiar look. "Pretensions--her hand!" said Richard, with a sneer. "Are you mad, mother, that you take this tone? I will soon let them see. I'm not going to be played with." He was about leaving the room, when his mother laid her hand upon his arm. "Stop, Richard," she said, firmly. "Recollect this--" "Well, what?" "That it was the clear wish of your father and myself to make you a gentleman." "Well, I am a gentleman," cried Richard, angrily. "Bear it in mind then, my son; and remember that rude, rough ways disgust Eve, and injure your cause. Mr Selwood is a gentleman, and you must meet him as a gentleman." "I don't know what you mean, mother," cried the young man, angrily. "I mean this, that my son occupies the position of the first man in Dumford; and though his father was a poor workman, and his mother a workman's daughter--" "There, don't always get flinging my birth in my teeth, mother--do, pray, sink the shop." "I have no wish to remind you of your origin, Richard," said Mrs Glaire, with a sigh; "only I wish to make you remember that we educated you to be a gentleman, and that we have given you the means. Act like one." "I shall do that; don't you be afraid," said Richard. "And mind, Richard, a true gentleman keeps his word," said Mrs Glaire, meaningly. "Well, so do I," exclaimed the young man, flushing up. "What are you hinting at now?" "I hope you do, my son; I hope you do," said Mrs Glaire, looking at him fixedly; and then, as a sharp knock came at the front door, she glided out of the room, and her voice was heard directly after in conversation with the bluff doctor. "Oh, he's here, too, is he?" muttered Dick, biting his nails. "Hang it all! Curse it, how crookedly things go. I--there, hang it all!" He stood, thinking, with knitted brows, and then hastily pouring out and tossing off another glass of sherry, and smiling in a way that looked very much like the twitch of the lip when a cur means to bite, he said, in a mock melodramatic voice-- "Ha--ha! we must dissemble!" and strode out of the room. Volume 1, Chapter XVIII. THE PLAN BEGINS TO WORK.