“I see that you think that I ought to have been grateful for a home. I wasn’t grateful. I have worked my passage. It was not desire for a home that has kept me here year after year, but a thing perhaps you don’t know very much about, Bob--a sense of duty. At this moment I have no idea whether your father is a ruined man, or whether his mind is slightly unhinged on the subject of money. He will not cut down the household in the smallest particular, and yet there are times when I can not get enough money from him to pay the servants’ wages. It is not an easy task, Bob, and such as it is I make it over to you.” He glanced at the room--at her own extravagant clothes. “Do you mean to say--” he began, but she interrupted him. “Don’t pretend to be surprised. As if I had not written to you often enough, as long as I had any hope you would come back.” “I never got your letters.” “Odd, for you always cashed my checks.” Vickers was silent. His experiment began to look less promising. It irked him inexpressibly to be obliged to bear such a tone from any one, more especially a woman. If Lee’s villainy had been on a larger scale he could have supported it better. “You have got to stay at home, Bob,” she said firmly. He could not help smiling. “It does not sound so alarming,” he answered. “You don’t suppose I meant stay and be idle?” she asked. “No, we don’t think idleness agrees very well with you, Bob. You are beginning work on Monday.” Her tone as well as her words irritated him. “I shall begin to look for something to do,” he said gravely. “And perhaps I shall find something to help the family resources out.” “You need not look about. Your place is waiting for you. Mr. Emmons has very kindly offered to make you a clerk in his office.” He laughed. “I think I can do a little better than that,” he said. “You are hardly in a position to choose. The family resources have had enough of your higher finance, Bob. You must take what is offered to you.” “It does not attract me--to be Mr. Emmons’s clerk.” “I am sorry to hear it, but you must do as I tell you, remember.” “Nellie,” he said, standing in front of the elegant and autocratic creature, “does it occur to you that a man may change in twelve years?” “It does not seem to me that you are essentially different, unless perhaps in your appearance, which I really think has improved a little.” “Thanks for the compliment. But I am changed to this extent--you can not dictate to me as you seem to imagine you can. I shall work, because I happen to prefer it, but I shall work how, when, and for whom I please.” She shook her head and smiled. “How like you that is, Bob--to imagine that fine talking will help you. You will have to do as I say.” “If you were a man I should call that a threat.” “Oh, it is a threat. Don’t you understand of what?” “No.” “That if you make any effort to shirk the clerkship--if you don’t behave well in it, even--I shall have you arrested.”