"I've heard you say with your own lips," retorted Andrew, "that all a girl required was a comfortable home and a husband who knew his own mind." "But you must remember," explained his father, "I was an old fool then." Andrew sprang to his feet with a wry and bitter face. "You certainly haven't the qualities of age now. I never heard such daft-like rubbish in my life. For Heaven's sake, just try to use any common sense you've got left. Frank will never have enough money to keep her properly." "Ah, but naturally I mean to alter my arrangements." Gradually the full possibilities of the situation were revealing themselves to the well-regulated mind of the junior partner. "You mean to change your will?" "I do." Yet another horrid possibility showed its head. "And are you going to alter Jean's share too, so that this precious Vernon fellow may have something to squander?" "Something respectable to live on," corrected his parent. "You mustn't starve art, you know." Andrew stared at him in silence, and when he spoke, it was with the air of a much-wronged worm which has deliberately resolved to turn at last. "I'm not wanting any of your Ellen Berstouns. If she's played this trick on me, that's enough of her. But I tell you plainly I'm not going to let you rob me to keep a pack of worthless painters and people out of the gutter, without taking some steps. I warn you of that." "My dear Andrew," said his father reproachfully, "that's hardly the attitude of a professing Christian. Just think, now; is it? You'll easily find a decent, quiet woman with a bit of money and no objection to hearing every day for an hour or two how you've been worried by your clients and swindled by your father, and I do honestly believe you'll get as near happiness as you're capable of. That's common sense, now; isn't it?" The slamming of the door answered him. "What a sulky fellow he is!" said Heriot to himself. Yet so conscious was he of the rectitude of his intentions, and so confiding had his disposition grown, that it never crossed his mind to beware of an infuriated lawyer. Besides, when Andrew had slept over it, he would surely realize how unanswerable were his father's arguments. "We'll see the old stick-in-the-mud dancing at Frank's wedding!" thought he. "There's no vice in Andrew; only a bit of obstinacy. It's all bark and no bite with him." With these amiable reflections he speedily consoled himself for the discomfort of any little temporary friction. And then the door opened gently. CHAPTER IV "I heard you had come back again," said Mrs. Dunbar. She closed the door as gently as she had opened it. The action pathetically expressed the quiet sorrow of a much-wronged woman's heart. "Yes," said Heriot gallantly, "I'm back again to Scotland, home and beauty. Ha, ha! Now that was quite pretty, wasn't it?" But her black eyes declined to sparkle, as she glided silently to a chair. Out of the corner of his own eye her lover looked at her critically.