And what does he want to do with Nora, any way?” This latter question Fenton came very soon to answer, and the answer amused him not a little. It seemed to him an extremely odd use of one’s time and capital, this fashioning of a wife to order. There was a long-winded patience about it, an arrogance of leisure, which excited his ire. Roger might surely have found his fit ready made! His disappointment, a certain angry impulse to break a window, as it were, in Roger’s hothouse, the sense finally that what he should gain he would gain from Nora alone, though indeed she was too confoundedly innocent to appreciate his pressing necessities,—these things combined to heat the young man’s humor to the fever-point, and to make him strike more random blows than belonged to plain prudence. The autumn being well advanced, the warmth of the sun had become very grateful. Nora used to spend much of the morning in strolling about the dismantled garden with her cousin. Roger would stand at the window with his honest face more nearly disfigured by a scowl than ever before. It was the old, old story, to his mind: nothing succeeds with women like just too little deference. Fenton would lounge along by Nora’s side, with his hands in his pockets, a cigar in his mouth, his shoulders raised to his ears, and a pair of tattered slippers on his absurdly diminutive feet. Not only had Nora forgiven him this last breach of decency, but she had forthwith begun to work him a new pair of slippers. “What on earth,” thought Roger, “do they find to talk about?” Their conversation, meanwhile, ran in some such strain as this. “My dear Nora,” said the young man, “what on earth, week in and week out, do you and Mr. Lawrence find to talk about?” “A great many things, George. We have lived long enough together to have a great many subjects of conversation.” “It was a most extraordinary thing, his adopting you, if you don’t mind my saying so. Imagine my adopting a little girl.” “You and Roger are very different men.” “We certainly are. What in the world did he expect to do with you?” “Very much what he has done, I suppose. He has educated me, he has made me what I am.” “You’re a very nice little person; but, upon my word, I don’t see that he’s to thank for it. A lovely girl can be neither made nor marred.” “Possibly! But I give you notice that I am not a lovely girl. I have it in me to be, under provocation, anything but a lovely girl. I owe everything to Roger. You must say nothing against him. I will not allow it. What would have become of me—” She stopped, betrayed by her glance and voice.