a lady, I should have sent
Archibald to speak with you."

"Perhaps it's fortunate you didn't. I might have kicked him."

"Captain Parsons, he's a minister of the gospel."

"Surely it is possible to be that without being a malicious busybody."

"You're heartless and vain! You're odiously conceited."

"I should have thought it a proof of modesty that for half an hour I
have listened to you with some respect and with great attention."

"I must say in my heart I'm glad that Providence has stepped in and
prevented Mary from marrying you. You are a bad man. And I leave you now
to the mercies of your own conscience; I am a Christian woman, thank
Heaven! and I forgive you. But I sincerely hope that God will see fit to
punish you for your wickedness."

Mrs. Jackson bounced to the door, which James very politely opened.

"Oh, don't trouble!" she said, with a sarcastic shake of the head. "I
can find my way out alone, and I shan't steal the umbrellas."

XIII

Major Forsyth arrived in time for tea, red-faced, dapper, and
immaculate. He wore a check suit, very new and very pronounced, with a
beautiful line down each trouser-leg; and his collar and his tie were of
the latest mode. His scanty hair was carefully parted in the middle, and
his moustache bristled with a martial ardour. He had lately bought a
fine set of artificial teeth, which, with pardonable pride, he
constantly exhibited to the admiration of all and sundry. Major
Forsyth's consuming desire was to appear juvenile; he affected slang,
and carried himself with a youthful jauntiness. He vowed he felt a mere
boy, and flattered himself that on his good days, with the light behind
him, he might pass for five-and-thirty.

"A woman," he repeated--"a woman is as old as she looks; but a man is as
old as he feels!"

The dandiness which in a crammer's pup--most overdressed of all the
human race--would merely have aroused a smile, looked oddly with the
Major's wrinkled skin and his old eyes. There was something almost
uncanny in the exaggerated boyishness; he reminded one of some figure
in a dance of death, of a living skeleton, hollow-eyed, strutting gaily
by the side of a gallant youth.

It was not difficult to impose upon the Parsons, and Major Forsyth had
gained over them a complete ascendancy. They took his opinion on every
possible matter, accepting whatever he said with gratified respect. He
was a man of the world, and well acquainted with the goings-on