“Did she tell you?” asked he. “About Wade?” “Yes,” snapped her husband. “What else is there, pray? Has she been up to something else disgraceful?” “Why, Dan, she’s done nothing disgraceful,” cried the mother. “Every girl has those passing fancies. But she’ll not oppose you. Anyhow, her own good sense----” Richmond gave an impatient snort. “She’s a fool--an impetuous fool.” His wife ventured a sly, catlike look from the corner of her eye into his back. “You always say she’s the most like you of any of----” “She takes her impetuosity from me. I hardly need say from whom she inherits her folly.” “I can see nothing to get excited about.” And Mrs. Richmond stretched herself in preparation for a leisurely sitting up. Richmond regarded his wife with his habitual expression of disdain for her uselessness. He said peremptorily: “You are going to town this evening with her, and you take her abroad day after to-morrow.” Mrs. Richmond sat up as if she had been prodded with a spike. “I can’t do it!” she cried. “I can’t get ready. And we’ve got invitations out for----” “I’m going to send my own secretary--Lawton--along with you, to watch her and report to me,” said Richmond. “You have shown that you are unable to take care of her. Excited? Indeed I am excited. To find that a wretched fortune hunter has just about foisted himself on me. And what of our plans for the girl’s future? Have bridge and these masseuses and hair women and all the rest of the fiddle-faddle that you fuddle about with taken from you the last glimmerings of sense?” He was storming up and down the room. “Good Heaven! Have I got to take one eye off my business to keep guard over my family? Are you good for _nothing_, Lucy?” “I hope you were careful what you said to her,” exclaimed Mrs. Richmond, alarmed by his complete lack of self-control. There had been many bitter scenes between them since their love waned as their wealth waxed. But theretofore he had attacked her with irony and sarcasm, with sneer and jeer. Never before had he used straight denunciation, made coarse and brutal by a manner he had hitherto reserved for the office. “You can’t treat her as you treat the rest of us,” she warned him. “And why not, pray?” demanded he. As she was silent, he repeated. “Why not? I said!” he cried in a tone so menacing, so near a blow, that she flushed a deep and angry red. “Because you have made her independent,” the wife was stung into replying. “What imbecility!” scoffed he, enraged by this home truth that had been tormenting him for several hours. “She’s got less than any of the rest of you. I’ve purposely kept her where she’d have to behave herself and love me. Your mind never was strong, Lucy. It has become flabby.”