"Eh? Have I? My dear, I merely spoke the truth. I merely suggested what everybody is saying. Colin ought to do something. His choice is circumscribed; but really there is no reason why he should live a life of dependence. I'm glad he has the spirit to refuse it for himself." "Colin has any amount of spirit. I only hope he will not bring on another breakdown. It would be a thousand pities." "He will do well enough if he isn't fussed. I never can fathom Mrs. Keith," mused Mr. Dugdale, with knitted brows. "Whatever one expects her to do, she is certain to do the opposite. I should have thought, with her proud nature—Proud! Yes! A pikestaff isn't 'in' it beside her!—I should have thought she would be charmed at the most distant prospect of Colin making his own way in life. I'd have staked my credit on it! Yet all she wants, apparently, is to keep him in blissful idleness! Can't understand it, for my part. I imagined I knew something of women: but they are a riddle and a delusion to the end of the chapter." "I hope you don't count me a delusion." He looked oddly at her. "I had the training of you." Kathleen could not help laughing. "There's another puzzle. Why has Mrs. Keith set her mind on getting Phyllys to Castle Hill? You wish it, and I wish it. Her father and I were friends. Giles might wish it too. But Mrs. Keith has talked and worried, bothered and insisted! And why? She has no connection with the girl." "Perhaps she thinks it will add to the liveliness of Castle Hill." "If that were all, she could invite a dozen young women. Giles never says No to her—" "He has gone against her in the modelling." Mr. Dugdale waved a protesting hand. "You are a woman too, my dear! Even you cannot let a man finish his sentence before springing an opposite view. I was about to say that Giles never says No to Mrs. Keith, unless saying Yes to her means No to Colin." "Perhaps she has an idea that Phyllys might make a good wife for Colin." "Absurd! She has never seen the girl." "According to Giles 'the girl' is worth seeing." "That is recent. Mrs. Keith set her mind years ago on getting hold of her. However, I give it up. Woman's ways are beyond me." He spread forth deprecating hands; then made a new start. "'Lived for Giles!' Nonsense! She lived for herself and Colin. Took care of Giles by the way—and was well paid for it too! The allowance was absurd! It has been a paying concern for Mrs. Keith from first to last." "At any rate she did her best for Giles." "Mrs. Keith knows on which side of her bread lies the butter. I don't blame her. There are advantages in worldly wisdom—for its possessor. But when she talks in the high-falutin' style of all she has been and done, as if, forsooth, 'she' were the family benefactor and Giles her humble debtor—no, I can't stand that. Some day I shall speak out." "Better not. Giles would not thank you. So long as things go smoothly, why stir up the mud?" Mr. Dugdale struck his hands together.