perfectly free agent."

"Which means, I suppose, that you intend to screw down the price?"

"In wanting to marry Angela," went on Philip, "you must remember that
you fly high. She is a very lovely woman, and, what is more, will some
day or other be exceedingly well off, whilst you--you must excuse me
for being candid, but this is a mere matter of business, and I am only
talking of you in the light of a possible son-in-law--you are a
middle-aged man, not prepossessing in appearance, broken in health,
and, however well you may have kept up your reputation in these parts,
as you and I well know, without a single shred of character left;
altogether not a man to who a father would marry his daughter of his
own free will, or one with whom a young girl is likely to find
happiness."

"You draw a flattering picture of me, I must say."

"Not at all, only a true one."

"Well, if I am all you say, how is it that you are prepared to allow
your daughter to marry me at all?"

"I will tell you; because the rights of property should take
precedence of the interests of a single individual. Because my father
and you between you cozened me out of my lawful own, and this is the
only way that I see of coming by it again."

"What does it matter? in any case after your death the land will come
back to Angela and her children."

"No, George, it will not; if ever the Isleworth estates come into my
hands, they shall not pass again to any child of yours."

"What would you do with them, then?"

"Marry, and get children of my own."

George whistled.

"Well, I must say that your intentions are amiable, but you have not
got the estates yet, my dear cousin."

"No, and never shall have, most likely; but let us come to the point.
Although I do not approve of your advances, I am willing to waive my
objections and accept you as a son-in-law, if you can win Angela's
consent, provided that before the marriage you consent to give me
clear transfer, at a price, of all the Isleworth estates, with the
exception of the mansion and the pleasure-grounds."

"Very good; but now about the price. That is the real point."

They had taken a path that ran down through the shrubberies to the
side of the lake, and then turned up towards Caresfoot's Staff. Before
answering George's remark, Philip proposed that they should sit down,
and, suiting the action to the word, placed himself upon the trunk of
a fallen tree that lay by the water's edge, just outsid