y
take place.

But Morris's pause, after he pushed his chair back and stood up, was only
momentary.

"Good God, yes; I'm in love," he said. "And she probably thinks me a
stupid barbarian, who likes only to drive golfballs and motorcars.
She--oh, it's hopeless. She would have let me come over to see them
to-morrow otherwise."

He paused again.

"And now I've given the whole show away," he said.

Mr. Taynton made a comfortable sort of noise. It was compounded of
laughter, sympathy, and comprehension.

"You gave it away long ago, my dear Morris," he said.

"You had guessed?" asked Morris, sitting down again with the same
quickness and violence of movement, and putting both his elbows on
the table.

"No, my dear boy, you had told me, as you have told everybody, without
mentioning it. And I most heartily congratulate you. I never saw a more
delightful girl. Professionally also, I feel bound to add that it seems
to me a most proper alliance--heirs should always marry heiresses.
It"--Mr. Taynton drank off the rest of his port--"it keeps properties
together."

Hot blood again dictated to Morris: it seemed dreadful to him that any
thought of money or of property could be mentioned in the same breath as
that which he longed for. He rose again as abruptly and violently as he
had sat down.

"Well, let's play billiards," he said. "I--I don't think you understand a
bit. You can't, in fact."

Mr. Taynton stroked the tablecloth for a moment with a plump white
forefinger.

"Crabbed age and youth," he remarked. "But crabbed age makes an appeal to
youth, if youth will kindly call to mind what crabbed age referred to
some five minutes ago. In other words, will you, or will you not, Morris,
spend a very dry three hours at my office, looking into the account of my
stewardship? There was thirty thousand pounds, and there now is--or
should we say 'are'--forty. It will take you not less than two hours, and
not more than three. But since my stewardship may come to an end, as I
said, any day, I should, not for my own sake, but for yours, wish you to
see what we have done for you, and--I own this would be a certain private
gratification to me--to learn that you thought that the trust your dear
father reposed in us was not misplaced."

There was something about these simple words which touched Morris. For
the moment he became almost businesslike. Mr. Taynton had been, as he
knew, a friend of his father's, and, as he had said, he