“In suspecting I was after your daughter and your money?” suggested Roger with an amused, ironic twinkle. “Something like that. But, Mr. Wade, you are a man of the world. You can’t wonder at my having such an idea.” “Not in the least,” assented Roger. “At the same time I do not blame you for being angry.” Roger smiled. “But, my dear sir, I was not angry. I didn’t in the least care what you thought. Even if you had succeeded in your vicious little scheme for robbing me of my competence, I still couldn’t have been angry. It is so easy for a man to make a generous living if he happens not to have burdened himself with expensive tastes.” “That matter of the railway bonds--it will be adjusted at once, Mr. Wade. I was sorry the exigencies of a large operation forced me to--to----” In his indignation Roger forgot the resolutions Peter had soothed and softened him into making. With his curtest accent he said: “What you did was contemptible enough. Why make it worse by lying?” Richmond sprang to his feet. Roger rose toweringly, in his face a plain hope that his guest was about to depart. Richmond sat down again. “You have me at your mercy,” cried he with a ludicrous mingling of attempt at politeness and frantic rage. “I?” said Roger, laughing. “Oh, no. Neither of us can do the other any harm. I wouldn’t if I could. You couldn’t if you would. Don’t you think we have had about enough of each other?” “I have a favor to ask of you,” said Richmond sullenly. Roger hesitated, seated himself. There was a look in his visitor’s eyes--a look of misery--that touched his heart. “Mr. Wade,” Richmond began again after a brief silence, “I am a man of very strong affections--very strong. Circumstances have concentrated them all on one person, my daughter Beatrice. They say everyone is a fool in at least one way. I am a fool about her.” Wade, inscrutable, was gazing at the drape over his painting. “But,” Richmond went on, “if she married against my will, much as I love her, foolish as I am about her, I would cut her off relentlessly.” “Then you don’t love her,” said Roger. “If you did you’d insist on her freely choosing the man she is to live with, the man who is to be the father of her children.” “Our ideas differ there,” said Richmond stiffly. “I am not surprised that she has left you,” pursued Roger. “You have made her realize that you don’t love her. And from what I know of her I doubt if you will ever get her back until you change your notions of what loving means.” Suspicion was once more sparkling in Richmond’s wicked eyes. “You may be sure I’ll not change, Mr. Wade,” said he with a peculiarity of emphasis which even the simple-minded Roger could not fail to understand. Roger laughed heartily. “At it again!” cried he. “Really, you are very amusing.”