said he. "How dare you make appointments
with a captain of hussars?" and he bent her knuckles fondlingly.

Emilia smiled as before. He left her with a distinct impression that she
did not comprehend that part of her lesson.

Wilfrid had just bled his father of a considerable sum of money; having
assured him that he was the accepted suitor of Lady Charlotte
Chillingworth, besides making himself pleasant in allusion to Mrs. Chump,
so far as to cast some imputation on his sisters' judgement for not
perceiving the virtues of the widow. The sum was improvidently large. Mr.
Pole did not hear aright when he heard it named. Even at the repetition,
he went: "Eh?" two or three times, vacantly. The amount was distinctly
nailed to his ear: whereupon he said, "Ah!--yes! you young fellows want
money: must have it, I suppose. Up from the bowels of the earth Up from
the--: you're sure they're not playing the fool with you, over there?"

Wilfrid understood the indication to Stornley. "I think you need have no
fear of that, sir." And so his father thought, after an examination of
the youth, who was of manly shape, and had a fresh, non-fatuous, air.

"Well, if that's all right..." sighed Mr. Pole. "Of course you'll always
know that money's money. I wish your sisters wouldn't lose their time, as
they do. Time's worth more than money. What sum?"

"I told you, sir, I wanted--there's the yacht, you know, and a lot of
tradesmen's bills, which you don't like to see standing:-about--perhaps I
had better name the round sum. Suppose you write down eight hundred. I
shan't want more for some months. If you fancy it too much..."

Mr. Pole had lifted his head. But he spoke nothing. His lips and brows
were rigid in apparent calculation. Wilfrid kept his position for a
minute or so; and then, a little piqued, he moved about. He had inherited
the antipathy to the discussion of the money question, and fretted to
find it unnecessarily prolonged.

"Shall I come to you on this business another time, sir?"

"No, God bless my soul!" cried his father; "are you going to keep this
hanging over me for ever? Eight hundred, you said." He mumbled: "salary
of a chief clerk of twenty years' standing. Eight: twice four:--there you
have it exactly."

"Will you send it me in a letter?" said Wilfrid, out of patience.

"I'll send it you in a letter," assented his father. Upon which Wilfrid
changed his mind. "I can take a chair, though. I can easily wait for it
no