"Well," said the ruthless gentleman, "then he can go and feed on their charity, can take to his flesh-pots and give up the girl. She is far too good for any foreign fortune-hunter anyway. You spoil a man, all of you. You'd prefer a disreputable roué to a cowboy with money in his pocket and a heart." "Would it then prove to you De Presle-Vaulx's heart if he threw over his family and went West?" "Yes," said the other quickly. "It would prove he loves the girl." "You forget his mother." Bulstrode fumed. "I have not the honor to forget her; I don't know the Marquise de Presle-Vaulx." "I do," interrupted his friend. "She is a charming, gentle old dear; narrow, if you call it so, clear-headed and delightful. She adores her only son, and thinks quite properly that his name, his estates, beautiful if mortgaged, are a fair exchange for an American _dot_. Maurice de Presle-Vaulx, after all, does not go poverty-stricken to the woman he marries. There are not so many ways to live after one is twenty-five, and to uproot this scion of an old race, to exact such a sacrifice----" "It would make a man of him." "He is one already. There are all kinds, I need not tell you so." "He is head over heels in debt." Mrs. Falconer laughed again. "We make him out an acrobat between us." "He gambles on borrowed money." "You mean that you have forced him to borrow from you? He will pay what he owes, I am sure of him." Bulstrode wheeled and scrutinized her, and said with the natural asperity of a man who is bored by a woman's too generous championship of another man: "You stand for him warmly." Mrs. Falconer, reading him, said quickly: "Oh, I know him thoroughly! He has the faults of his race, but as an individual he is the right sort." With their pretty habit, her cheeks had grown red in the course of the discussion. "Please give me my parasol; it's awfully hot here." He opened it for her and she held its rosy lining against the sun. Mr. Falconer, who from the rail had been observing, through the haze formed by countless cocktails, the figure of his wife in her white dress, as well as the figure of her faithful squire, here came swaggering up to them both. He was never jealous, but Mr. Bulstrode's uniform courtesy and attention to the woman neglected by her husband often piqued him to attention. As he drew near, Mrs. Falconer asked quickly: "And the Marquis, Jimmy? What do you suppose he will say to your Wild West scheme?" Bulstrode smiled. "Oh, you women understand us even when we are stupid mysteries to ourselves! Tell me, how will he take this?" "He will refuse." The lady was quick in her decision. "He cannot in consistence do otherwise. He will consider your plan provincial and Yankee, and he will consider, what you ignore, that it will kill his mother. If he cannot marry Molly with the family consent in proper French fashion he will naturally give her up. But first of all, my dear Jimmy, he will put _you_ in your place!"