“Certainly not.” Beatrice laughed aloud. “I never told him I was not married.” “You say you asked him to marry you?” “Yes--I did.” “And you say he refused?” “He refused absolutely. He laughed at the idea that I really cared for him. If you could have heard, father! That’s why it’d be unjust for you to blame him. It was every bit my fault.” “Why did he refuse to marry you?” her father asked calmly. “Because he did not care, I suppose--care enough.” “What reason did he give?” “He didn’t think it would be good for his career. He-- Oh, he had a lot of reasons. They didn’t seem to me to amount to much, for, of course, everybody wants to get married, and expects to, some time. That was why I--hoped.” “Don’t you think he may have been evading--didn’t want to tell you the real reason?” Her father’s calm, searching insistence, free from anger or malice, friendly toward her, not unjust to Roger--it began to agitate her, to fill her with vague doubts and fears. “But if he had that reason,” urged she, “he could have ended everything at once by telling me.” “Unless he had a reason for silence,” replied Richmond. And with quiet acuteness he explained: “Maybe he’s planning to get rid of his wife so that he’ll be free to accept you--and the fortune he thinks goes with you.” “You’re trying to prejudice me against him!” cried the girl, all in a turmoil over this subtle attack, which seemed to come as much from within as from without. But her father was equal to this emergency. “If you intend to keep your engagement,” said he, “if you have no hope of being accepted by this young man you know nothing about--you wish to be prejudiced against him--don’t you, Beatrice?” There seemed to be no effective answer to this shrewdness. “Yes, I do want to prejudice you against him,” continued Richmond. “I want you to wake up to the fact that you’ve been doing all these foolish, compromising things for a man about whom you know absolutely nothing.” “I’m _sure_ he’s not married!” exclaimed Beatrice with overemphasis. “Maybe not,” was her father’s unruffled reply. “But it does look exceedingly strange--doesn’t it?--that a girl like you should be refused by a poor nobody--for no reason.” “He is honest and independent,” replied Beatrice strongly--but not so strongly as she wished. “He wouldn’t marry me unless he loved me.” “But I should think,” subtly suggested Richmond, “it would be--well, not so very hard for a man to fall in love with a girl who had so many advantages.” Beatrice’s vanity lined up strongly behind her worldly common sense in conceding plausibility--and more--to this suggestion. She laughed, but she was impressed. When they were near the house her father said good-humoredly: “Will you take me in the way you came out? I’ve told Pinney not to turn on the alarms until I come out of my study--where he thinks I am.”