"I am not such a fool as to suppose that you are to quarrel with a man because I don't approve his addressing your sister; but I do think that while this is going on, and while he perseveres in opposition to my distinct refusal, you need not associate with him in any special manner." "I don't understand your objection to him, sir." "I dare say not. There are a great many things you don't understand. But I do object." "He's a very rising man. Mr. Roby was saying to me just now--" "Who cares a straw what a fool like Roby says?" "I don't mean Uncle Dick, but his brother,--who, I suppose, is somebody in the world. He was saying to me just now that he wondered why Lopez does not go into the House;--that he would be sure to get a seat if he chose, and safe to make a mark when he got there." "I dare say he could get into the House. I don't know any well-to-do blackguard of whom you might not predict as much. A seat in the House of Commons doesn't make a man a gentleman as far as I can see." "I think every one allows that Ferdinand Lopez is a gentleman." "Who was his father?" "I didn't happen to know him, sir." "And who was his mother? I don't suppose you will credit anything because I say it, but as far as my experience goes, a man doesn't often become a gentleman in the first generation. A man may be very worthy, very clever, very rich,--very well worth knowing, if you will;--but when one talks of admitting a man into close family communion by marriage, one would, I fancy, wish to know something of his father and mother." Then Everett escaped, and Mr. Wharton was again left to his own meditations. Oh, what a peril, what a trouble, what a labyrinth of difficulties was a daughter! He must either be known as a stern, hard-hearted parent, utterly indifferent to his child's feelings, using with tyranny the power over her which came to him only from her sense of filial duty,--or else he must give up his own judgment, and yield to her in a matter as to which he believed that such yielding would be most pernicious to her own interests. Hitherto he really knew nothing of the man's means;--nor, if he could have his own way, did he want such information. But, as things were going now, he began to feel that if he could hear anything averse to the man he might thus strengthen his hands against him. On the following day he went into the city, and called on an old friend, a banker,--one whom he had known for nearly half a century, and of whom, therefore, he was not afraid to ask a question. For Mr. Wharton was a man not prone, in the ordinary intercourse of life, either to ask or to answer questions. "You don't know anything, do you, of a man named Ferdinand Lopez?" "I have heard of him. But why do you ask?" "Well; I have a reason for asking. I don't know that I quite wish to say what my reason is." "I have heard of him as connected with Hunky's house," said the banker,--"or rather with one of the partners in the house." "Is he a man of means?"