Sir Charles handed him Madeline's letter without a word. Gervase read it carefully, and then handed it back with a little sigh of relief. She had not told his father what she had told him, and for that mercy he was supremely grateful.

For several moments the two men looked at each other in silence. Neither had the courage to blame the other, and yet neither was disposed to take the blame himself. Gervase was convinced that his father played the game badly at the beginning, but he had played it worse at the end. Hence it was bad policy to fling stones while he lived in a gla.s.s-house himself.

A similar train of thought wound its way slowly through Sir Charles's brain. From his point of view Gervase had played the fool again and again, though he saw now that the waiting policy he had advocated was a huge mistake. So while he was inclined to throw the princ.i.p.al share of blame on to Gervase's shoulders, he was bound to take a share himself.

"I suppose we may conclude," Gervase said, at length, in a lugubrious tone, "that the game is up."

"I'm afraid it is," Sir Charles answered, with suppressed emotion.

"It's a beastly shame, for I've been counting on her fortune for years past."

"It's an awful miss. Her fortune would have set the Tregonys on their feet."

"It's no use trying to get her back, I suppose?"

"Do you think you could yet persuade her to marry you?"

Gervase blushed, and walked to the window and looked out into the courtyard.

"Girls are such curious things," he muttered, evasively. "You never know when you have them."

"I can't help thinking you played your cards badly, Gervase. She seemed to idolise you when she came to Trewinion, and looked forward so eagerly to your return."

"The mistake was in not marrying her right off when we met at Washington. She would have said 'yes' like a shot, for she was awfully gone on me. She adored soldiers at that time, and regarded me as a hero."

Sir Charles heaved a sigh and remained silent for several moments.

"Would you mind letting me see her letter to you?" he questioned, at length.

"Sorry, father, but--but--I've destroyed it," he blurted out, awkwardly.

This was not the truth, but he wouldn't for the world that his father should read what she said to him.

"Destroyed it? What did you do that for?" Sir Charles asked, suspiciously.

"I was just mad and hardly knew what I was doing. It seemed the only way I could give vent to my anger. I tore it into millions of bits."

"What reasons did she give for her outrageous conduct?"

"Well, in some respects it was an awfully nice letter she wrote. She said she admired me as a friend immensely. But she didn't love me as she felt she ought to do, which made her unhappy, and so she thought it best to go away without any fuss, and all that, don't you know."

"And do you believe she still admires you?"

"Why, of course I do. She said so, in fact. I wish I hadn't destroyed her letter. There were some awfully nice sentiments in it, I can a.s.sure you."

"Then why were you so angry?"

"Why, because I saw I was up a tree. When a girl you want to marry talks about being a sister to you, and all that, don't you know, it makes one angrier than anything."

"Well, yes, I suppose it does. I'm terribly disappointed, Madeline was a chance in a lifetime."

"But rather smacked of trade, don't you think? You know very well if she'd been an English girl, you wouldn't have considered her for a moment."

"That may be. But since even dukes marry tradesmen's daughters--provided, of course, they hail from across the water--there was no reason why we should turn up our noses."

"I'm too poverty-stricken to turn up my nose at anything. I'd marry a barmaid if she only had sufficient of the needful."

"Don't talk nonsense, Gervase, I thought you were really fond of Madeline, apart from her money."

"So I am. She's awfully pretty, there's no denying that. But I'm too old to break my heart over any woman. It's the tin--or the lack of it--that is troubling me."

"You'll have to curtail your expenses, Gervase; there's nothing else for it. I cannot possibly increase your allowance. The fact is, we shall have to economise all round."

"I'm always economising," was the angry retort. "It's been pinch and grind ever since I was born."

"That's not my fault, my boy. I'm getting the biggest rents I can possibly squeeze out of the tenants as it is, and there's no chance of things mending unless we can get Protection."

"And that we may whistle for."

"Why so?"

"Because the people have got educated. An awful mistake, I say, to educate the working cla.s.ses. An ignorant proletariat you may hoodwink and bamboozle to your heart's content; but no enlightened community is going to consent to have its bread taxed for the benefit of the landowners."

"The people will have to be shown it's for their benefit. That's the game to play."

"No doubt. But it will take a mighty clever man to prove even to a public-house loafer that the dearer things are made, the better off he will be."

"But you must not forget that there are some very clever men at work."

"They are not clever enough for that."

"You don't know. They have undertaken more difficult tasks and succeeded. Think of South Africa!"

"I'd rather not. It won't bear thinking about."

"Nevertheless, it shows what can be done. The ma.s.ses of the people are more easily persuaded than you think. Education, you must remember, is not sense. Hit upon a popular cry, and the rest is easy."

"But no country can be gulled twice in so short a period. No, dad, our fortunes are not to be mended along those lines."

"I am not so sure. A good stirring appeal to patriotism will work wonders still. 'England for the English----'"

"England for the English landlords, you mean, for that's what it comes to in the end."

"No doubt it does. But while a few people own the land it is well that the ma.s.ses should think that England belongs to them."

"But do they think that England belongs to them?"

"Of course they do. There isn't a man-jack among them that will not talk big about defending his country and dying for his country, when he doesn't possess a foot of it, and hasn't money enough to buy a grave to be buried in."

"Well, dad, I sincerely trust that your hopes will be realised, and that England will consent to be gulled again for the benefit of a few. Good heavens! if I'd only been an army contractor instead of a soldier, I should have made my fortune."