"My dear Madge, just look at the thing sensibly. Surely you are old enough by this time to take a practical view of what after all is a very simple situation. You laid down the law yourself not five minutes ago, and laid it down very justly. If two people are unsuitably mated, the engagement should be broken off. Very well; just try to realize for a moment what it means to marry a man who is getting fuller and fuller of beans all the time--at your age, mark you. The fact is, we are just like two trains rushing in opposite directions. For a moment we may be side by side, and then--whit!--we have passed each other and are getting a couple of miles farther apart every minute." Even this graphic allegory failed to dry her tears. "You are deserting me--you are breaking my heart!" she wailed. "Hush, hush," he answered soothingly; "on the contrary, I am sparing you--sparing you no end of anxiety." She looked at him like a tragedy queen. "Have you no thought of how my reputation will suffer, Heriot?" "How can it suffer? Nobody knows we've been engaged." "Do you suppose they haven't guessed?" "Not from anything I've said or done, I can assure you." She sprang up indignantly. "Have you no sense of honor?" "Look here," he answered, with his most ingratiating manner, "I'll be a son to you, Madge--an affectionate, dutiful--" "You coward!" she cried. Heriot found himself alone in his library with his engagement satisfactorily ended. CHAPTER V Andrew had retired to the dining-room. Once the day's eating was over, this apartment, with its vast space of dignified gloom, its black marble mantelpiece, and the cloth of indigo plushette which now covered the table, made the most congenial refuge conceivable. His thoughts were in exact harmony with everything there, from the Venetian blinds to the portrait of his great-grandmother. The only discordant element was the presence of a few errant bread-crumbs, and happily they were under the table. It was to this lair that he was tracked by Madge Dunbar. She never paused to ask if she disturbed him, or gave him any chance of protest, but advancing straight up to him, exclaimed-- "Your father is off his head!" The junior partner eyed her warily, divided between suspicion and a glow of sympathy with her opinion. "What has he done now?" he inquired gloomily. "He has treated me exactly as he has treated you!" The sympathy deepened; the suspicion began to ooze away; but all he remarked was, "Oh?" He was indeed a magnificently cautious man. "What can we do?" she cried. Andrew scrutinized her carefully. She might be fibbing; she might be up to some of her tricks again; this might even be a move arranged with his father. One could not be too prudent. "What do you propose to do?" he asked. "Bring him to his senses if it's possible: if not--Oh, Andrew, his conduct is infamous! I don't care what we do to punish--I mean to restrain him."