mind. Magnanimity is all
very well, but it's easy to be magnanimous where your affections aren't
too deeply concerned. A man in love has no right to be magnanimous--it
isn't a healthy sign. Lady Beddow used those very words to me this
morning. She feels as I do, that in your attitude to Terry you lack
something. You've let two days elapse since you asked my permission to
approach her---- You're the same with this Maisie woman--inhumanly,
unsatisfactorily magnanimous. You don't identify yourself with our
antipathies--you almost side with the people who affront us. It's
estranging and distressing. I like a man to be more emphatic in his
loyalties and aversions. I like him to show more fire. In days that I
can almost remember, Braithwaite's intrusion would have been an occasion
for a duel. Terry's mother feels the same about you; it makes her
unhappy. 'He lacks ardor'--that was how she expressed it. 'Perhaps,
after all, he's too old for Terry,' she said. Personally I don't go as
far as that."

Now that he had made an end, Sir Tobias attempted to beam on Tabs with
his accustomed suavity. He was skillful in saying offensive things with
an air of consideration. When he had said, "Personally I don't go as far
as that," he had leant out and patted Tabs' hand with a senile display
of affection.

_Too old for Terry!_ Tabs sat pondering the words. They voiced his own
doubt--the doubt that had haunted him from the moment of his return. The
antiquated version of Shakespeare sat watching him, plucking at his
pointed beard and blinking his faded eyes shrewdly.

Suddenly with a cavalier smile of conquest, which was strangely
unwarranted, Tabs swung himself to his feet. "Well, Sir Tobias, we've
talked for more than our half hour. After all, it doesn't matter a
continental what you, or I, or Lady Beddow feels. It's Terry's feelings
that count. I shall know what she feels before the afternoon is ended."

He was holding out his hand to the surprised old gentleman, when the
door opened just sufficiently to admit Terry's head.

"Come on, your Lordship!" she laughed mockingly, "you've kept me waiting
long enough."

CHAPTER THE SIXTH

TRAMPLED ROSES

I

As Tabs emerged from his interview with Sir Tobias, he found Terry
standing in the hall, doing up the last button of her gloves. James, of
the velvet-plush manners, lost no time in proffering him his hat and
cane, and in flinging the front-door wide. He did it with the air