"What I say. You've had enough of a `peg' to last you till to-night. What you want now is some strong coffee, so come right in and have it." He grumbled something about not being master in his own house, and a good deal more. But in the end he submitted; for Clytie was the one who ruled him, and, to do her justice, ruled him tactfully and for his good, so far as it lay within her power; whereas Delia was somewhat intolerant of this phase of her parent's weakness, and adopted towards it a scornful attitude. "Well, dad, you haven't guessed who has just gone," went on Clytie. "How the blazes should I know--or care?" snapped the old man. "Some spark of yours, I suppose." "Haven't got any just now. Everyone seems `off' me. Delia's putting my nose clean out of joint," was the placid reply. "Well, what d'you think of Wagram?" "What?" roared old Calmour, who was just in the quarrelsome stage and was glad of an object whereon to vent it. "He? If I'd been here I'd have kicked him out of the house." "No, you wouldn't," said Delia quickly. "You couldn't, to begin with." "What the--what the--?" And as the old man, purple with rage, let off a string of unstudied profanity, both girls put their fingers to their ears. "Let's know when you've blown off steam, dad," said Clytie, "then we'll listen to you again." At last old Calmour, seeing no fun in cursing without an audience, and being, moreover, quite blown, desisted, the resumed thread of his wrath taking the shape of rumbling growls. He would teach that blanked, stuck-up jackanapes--keeping wild beasts to attack his girls on a public road. He didn't care this or that for any blanked Wagram, even if they owned half the county. He'd knock a thousand pounds damages out of them for that little job. He'd put it in his solicitors' hands at once, he would, by so and so. "You'll do nothing of the sort, dad," said Clytie. "We've got a much better plan than that." "Oh, you have, have you? And what is it?" "Not going to tell you--not yet. Leave it to me, and--keep quiet." Again he grumbled and swore, but Clytie's equanimity was proof against such little amenities. She was not going to let her father into their scheme only to have him giving it away in his cups, in this or that saloon bar about the place, not she. At last, drowsy with the combined warmth of the day, his own vehemence, and, incidentally, the liquor he had imbibed, he subsided on a sofa, and snored. He did not look lovely as he lay there, open-mouthed and breathing stertorously, his grey hair all touzled about his red and bloated face. It was hard to realise that he could be the father of these two very attractive girls, yet in his younger days he had been a good-looking man enough. But the effects of poverty and domestic worry, and drink taken to drown the care inseparable therefrom, had made him--well, what he was. CHAPTER SIX. A SOLEMNITY.