They looked at each other in silence--measuring each other--or, rather, daughter submitting calmly to her father’s keen, measuring eyes, while she wondered how a man so strong and daring as he could have such a pitiful weakness as snobbishness. At last Richmond said pleasantly: “Beatrice, I’ve come to take you back home.” She advanced to a chair, into which she dropped with graceful deliberation. “I thought you had come to apologize.” Her tone was a subtle provocation. He flushed a little--a faint glow upon his dry, wrinkled face with its huge forehead, its huge nose and its dwindling and wily little chin. “That, too,” said he with astonishing self-restraint. “I was so mad yesterday that I lost my head. My digestion isn’t what it once was. My nerves are frayed out.” “You admit you wronged Roger Wade?” Richmond winced, but held to the game he had decided upon. “I admit I know nothing about him--except, of course, what D’Artois said. But I can’t honestly say I believe in him. I still feel he is a fortune hunter.” “I can understand that,” said Beatrice, unbending a little. “I suspected him, myself.” “Trust to your intuition, Beatrice,” cried Richmond cordially. “It always guides right.” “I’m glad to hear you say that,” observed his daughter. “For my intuition was that he was simple as a baby about money matters. The nasty suspicion came afterwards--when I was piqued because he had refused me.” Richmond made a large, generous gesture, strove--not unsuccessfully--to accompany it with a large, generous expression. “Well--that’s all past and gone. Are you ready to go home?” “I am not going home, father,” said Beatrice in an ominously quiet tone. Richmond ignored. “Oh, you want to stay with Allie a few days? Why not take her down with you?... The fact is”--Richmond cleared his throat--“the place seems lonely without you.” Beatrice’s glance fell. Her sensitive, upper lip moved nervously--the faintest tremor quickly controlled. “My car’s at the door,” he went on, an old man’s fear-laden eagerness in his voice. “It’ll take us straight to the station.” He glanced at his watch. “We’ll be in time for that first express.” Beatrice did not dare look at him. She said insistently: “You will say nothing more about my marrying Peter? You leave me free to marry whom I please?” Richmond drew down his brows. Temper began to tug at the corners of his cruel mouth. Really, this insurgent child of his was exceeding the outermost limits of fond, paternal forbearance. “You’ve had time to think things over,” said he in a voice of restraint. “You’re a sensible girl at bottom. And I know you have decided to act sensibly.” Beatrice rose. “Yes, I have,” said she. “Then--come on,” said Richmond, though he knew perfectly well that was not what she meant. “You read my note to mother?” “I pay no attention to hysteria. I waited for your good sense to get a hearing.” “I shall stay in New York,” she said gently. “I am of age. I intend to be free.”