"That is wrong, Harry," she answered. "It is a poor heart that has room for only one love. My love for father can never wrong you. He is the first memory I have. Before I was three years old, I remember him, carrying me in his arms every night until I fell asleep. When I was a school-girl he helped me with my lessons. He taught me how to skate, and to drive, and to row. We were always together. My mother did not care much for books and embroidery and drawing, but father watched my stitches and my pencil, and wondered all the time at his little girl's cleverness. I knew he made too much of his little girl's cleverness; but then, we love people who make much of us in any way. And it is past believing how happy we have been since I left college! Oh, I love father so much, I never could love him less! Are your father and mother any less dear to you for loving me?" This was a question Harry could not answer fairly. He remembered his mother's appeal but a few hours previously. He knew that under it he had been unfaithful to Adriana--knew that he had been willing to sacrifice her happiness to gratify a mere social exigency--knew that he had put Rose's interests before Adriana's interests--knew that he had been absolutely considerate of the old ties, and that he was now seeking the new one, not as the first and the last, the be-all, and the end-all, of his existence; but as some fresh, delicious element to be lost in the old element, some quick and piquant spice, with which to make keener and sweeter the old tedious, monotonous experience, which, after all, he was not willing to lose in the joyousness of the new one. He answered Yanna's question therefore guardedly; he had even a feeling that she ought not to have asked it. "Of course, I love my family, Yanna, just the same as I ever did. My love for you is quite independent of that love. I have been practically the head of the house for many years, and to lose me is, therefore, like losing the head of the house." "Hardly so, Harry. I think Mr. Filmer is quite able to take care of his family's interests, if it should be necessary for him to do so. Father said he never met a man at once so cautious and so honorable in business." "In a matter of buying and selling, father is more than equal to his circumstances. I am speaking of our social life. In society, he is a perfect child; in fact, we continually have to shield his mistakes behind his learning. It is for this reason, my own sweet Yanna, that mother thinks we ought to keep our engagement secret." "Our engagement secret! Your mother thinks it! Did you ask Mrs. Filmer's permission to offer yourself to me?" As she spoke, she gently withdrew from his embrace and looked with a steady countenance at him. Harry was like a man between two fires; his face burned, he felt almost irritable. Why couldn't Yanna take what he had to offer, and be content? "Mother lifted a book in my room," he said, "and a copy of the letter I sent you fell out of it."