"I know what you're going to say." She twisted round on him swiftly. "I'll promise at once. I'll never marry Mr. Holmes. I've already told him I won't marry him." Surprise relaxed his grip. She took swift advantage and sheered away to the other side of the table. He rose and brought down his hand with a thump. "You refused him? Why, you silly little baggage, my condition is that you should marry him. You're sweet on him aren't you?" "I detest him," cried Phyllis. "Why should I marry him?" Her eyes, young and pure, divined some sordid horror behind eyes crafty and ignoble. Once before she had had such a fleeting, uncomprehended vision into the murky depths of the man's soul. This was some time ago. In the routine of her secretarial duties she had, one morning, opened and read a letter, not marked "Private" or "Personal," whose tenor she could scarcely understand. When she handed it to her father, he smiled, vouchsafed a specious explanation, and looked at her in just the same crafty and ignoble fashion, and she shrank away frightened. The matter kept her awake for a couple of nights. Then, for sheer easing of her heart, she went to her adored Betty Fairfax, her Lady Patroness and Mother Confessor, who, being wise and strong, and possessing the power of making her kind eyes unfathomable, laughed, bade her believe her father's explanation, and sent her away comforted. The incident passed out of her mind. But now memory smote her, as she shrank from her father's gaze and the insincere smile on his thin lips. "For one thing," he replied after a pause, pulling his straggly beard, "your poor dear mother was a lady, and if she had lived she would have wanted you to marry a gentleman. It's for her sake I've given you an education that fits you to consort with gentlefolk--just for her sake--don't make any mistake about it, for I've always hated the breed. If I've violated my principles in order to meet her wishes, I think you ought to meet them too. You wouldn't like to marry a small tradesman or a working man, would you?" "I'm not going to marry anybody," cried Phyllis. She was only a pink and white, very ordinary little girl. I have no idealisations or illusions concerning Phyllis. But she had a little fine steel of character running through her. It flashed on Gedge. "I don't want to marry anybody," she declared. "But I'd sooner marry a bricklayer who was fighting for his country than a fine gentleman like Mr. Holmes who wasn't. I'd sooner die," she cried passionately.