Sir John had said his say about Millicent Chyne; and his son knew that that was the last word. She was a bad woman. From that point he would never move. “I think,” said Jack, “that it is useless discussing that point any longer.” “Quite. When do you intend getting married?” “As soon as possible.” “A mere question for the dressmaker?” suggested Sir John suavely. “Yes.” Sir John nodded gravely. “Well,” he said, “you are, as you say, no longer a child--perhaps I forget that sometimes. If I do, I must ask you to forgive me. I will not attempt to dissuade you. You probably know your own affairs best--” He paused, drawing his two hands slowly back on his knees, looking into the fire as if his life was written there. “At all events,” he continued, “it has the initial recommendation of a good motive. I imagine it is what is called a love-match. I don't know much about such matters. Your mother, my lamented wife, was an excellent woman--too excellent, I take it, to be able to inspire the feeling in a mere human being--perhaps the angels... she never inspired it in me, at all events. My own life has not been quite a success within this room; outside it has been brilliant, active, full of excitement. Engineers know of machines which will stay upright so long as the pace is kept up; some of us are like that. I am not complaining. I have had no worse a time than my neighbours, except that it has lasted longer.” He leant back suddenly in his chair with a strange little laugh. Jack was leaning forward, listening with that respect which he always accorded to his father. “I imagine,” went on Sir John, “that the novelists and poets are not very far wrong. It seems that there is such a thing as a humdrum happiness in marriage. I have seen quite elderly people who seem still to take pleasure in each other's society. With the example of my own life before me, I wanted yours to be different. My motive was not entirely bad. But perhaps you know your own affairs best. What money have you?” Jack moved uneasily in his chair. “I have completed the sale of the last consignment of Simiacine,” he began categorically. “The demand for it has increased. We have now sold two hundred thousand pounds worth in England and America. My share is about sixty thousand pounds. I have invested most of that sum, and my present income is a little over two thousand a year.” Sir John nodded gravely. “I congratulate you,” he said; “you have done wonderfully well. It is satisfactory in one way, in that it shows that, if a gentleman chooses to go into these commercial affairs, he can do as well as the bourgeoisie. It leads one to believe that English gentlemen are not degenerating so rapidly as I am told the evening Radical newspapers demonstrate for the trifling consideration of one halfpenny. But”--he paused with an expressive gesture of the hand--“I should have preferred that this interesting truth had been proved by the son of some one else.”