"Poor father!" Nick exclaimed vaguely, rather embarrassed, reflecting on the oddity of a position in which the ground for holding up his head as the husband of a rich woman would be that he had accepted a present of money from another source. It was plain he was not fated to go in for independence; the most that he could treat himself to would be dependence that was duly grateful "How much do you expect of me?" he inquired with a grave face. "Well, Nicholas, only what your father did. He so often spoke of you, I remember, at the last, just after you had been with him alone--you know I saw him then. He was greatly moved by his interview with you, and so was I by what he told me of it. He said he should live on in you--he should work in you. It has always given me a special feeling, if I may use the expression, about you." "The feelings are indeed not usual, dear Mr. Carteret, which take so munificent a form. But you do--oh you do--expect too much," Nick brought himself to say. "I expect you to repay me!" the old man returned gaily. "As for the form, I have it in my mind." "The form of repayment?" "The form of repayment!" "Ah don't talk of that now," said Nick, "for, you see, nothing else is settled. No one has been told except my mother. She has only consented to my telling you." "Lady Agnes, do you mean?" "Ah no; dear mother would like to publish it on the house-tops. She's so glad--she wants us to have it over to-morrow. But Julia herself," Nick explained, "wishes to wait. Therefore kindly mention it for the present to no one." "My dear boy, there's at this rate nothing to mention! What does Julia want to wait for?" "Till I like her better--that's what she says." "It's the way to make you like her worse," Mr. Carteret knowingly declared. "Hasn't she your affection?" "So much so that her delay makes me exceedingly unhappy." Mr. Carteret looked at his young friend as if he didn't strike him as quite wretched; but he put the question: "Then what more does she want?" Nick laughed out at this, though perceiving his host hadn't meant it as an epigram; while the latter resumed: "I don't understand. You're engaged or you're not engaged." "She is, but I'm not. That's what she says about it. The trouble is she doesn't believe in me." Mr. Carteret shone with his candour. "Doesn't she love you then?" "That's what I ask her. Her answer is that she loves me only too well. She's so afraid of being a burden to me that she gives me my freedom till I've taken another year to think." "I like the way you talk about other years!" Mr. Carteret cried. "You had better do it while I'm here to bless you." "She thinks I proposed to her because she got me in for Harsh," said Nick. "Well, I'm sure it would be a very pretty return." "Ah she doesn't believe in me," the young man repeated. "Then I don't believe in _her_." "Don't say that--don't say that. She's a very rare creature. But she's proud, shy, suspicious." "Suspicious of what?"