“Well, I want it explained, that’s all, from your own point of view. I see my daughter as an unusual person, ignorant of life, to whom it seems to me all things are possible. And I see you, a very nice young man. But what else? I ask to be told why you fulfil all possibilities. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not mercenary. Mathilde will have plenty of money of her own some day. I don’t want a millionaire. I want a _person_.” “Of course, if you ask me why Mathilde should love me--” “Don’t be untruthful, Mr. Wayne. I thought better of you. If you should come back from China next year to find her engaged to some one else, you could tell a great many reasons why he was not good enough for her. Now tell me some of the reasons why you are. And please don’t include because you love her so much, for almost any one would do that.” Pete fought down his panic, reminding himself that no man living could hear such words without terror. His egotism, never colossal, stood feebly between him and Mrs. Farron’s estimate of him. He seemed to sink back into the general human species. If he had felt inclined to detail his own qualities, he could not have thought of one. There was a long silence, while Adelaide sat with a look of docile teachableness upon her expectant face. At last Wayne stood up. “It’s no use, Mrs. Farron,” he said. “That question of yours can’t be answered. I believe she loves me. It’s my bet against yours.” “I won’t gamble with my child’s future,” she returned. “I did with my own. Sit down again, Mr. Wayne. You have heard, I suppose, that I have been married twice?” “Yes.” He sat down again reluctantly. “I was Mathilde’s age--a little older. I was more in love than she. And if he had been asked the question I just asked you, he could have answered it. He could have said: ‘I have been a leader in a group in which I was, an athlete, an oarsman, and the most superb physical specimen of my race’--brought up, too, he might have added, in the same traditions that I had had. Well, that wasn’t enough, Mr. Wayne, and that was a good deal. If my father had only made me wait, only given me time to see that my choice was the choice of ignorance, that the man I thought a hero was, oh, the most pitifully commonplace clay--Mathilde shan’t make my mistake.” Wayne’s eyes lit up. “But that’s it,” he said. “She wouldn’t make your mistake. She’d choose right. That’s what I ought to have said. You spoke of Mathilde’s spirit. She has a feeling for the right thing. Some people have, and some people are bound to choose wrong.” Adelaide laid her hand on her breast. “You mean me?” she asked, too much interested to be angry. He was too absorbed in his own interests to give his full attention to hers.