hurried
look at his son. His wife noisily shook the dice-box and threw the dice
on the board.

"Nine!" she said.

James turned to look at his uncle, noting a little contemptuously the
change of his costume, and its extravagant juvenility.

"A lot of stuff and nonsense, isn't it?"

"D'you think so?" asked James, wearily. "We've been taking it very
seriously."

"You're a set of old fogies down here. You want a man of the world to
set things right."

"Ah, well, you're a man of the world, Uncle William," replied James,
smiling.

The dice-box rattled obtrusively as Colonel Parsons and his wife played
on with elaborate unconcern of the conversation.

"A gentleman doesn't jilt a girl when he's been engaged to her for five
years."

James squared himself to answer Major Forsyth. The interview with Mrs.
Jackson in the morning had left him extremely irritated. He was resolved
to say now all he had to say and have done with it, hoping that a
complete explanation would relieve the tension between his people and
himself.

"It is with the greatest sorrow that I broke off my engagement with Mary
Clibborn. It seemed to me the only honest thing to do since I no longer
loved her. I can imagine nothing in the world so horrible as a loveless
marriage."

"Of course, it's unfortunate; but the first thing is to keep one's
word."

"No," answered James, "that is prejudice. There are many more important
things."

Colonel Parsons stopped the pretence of his game.

"Do you know that Mary is breaking her heart?" he asked in a low voice.

"I'm afraid she's suffering very much. I don't see how I can help it."

"Leave this to me, Richmond," interrupted the Major, impatiently.
"You'll make a mess of it."

But Colonel Parsons took no notice.

"She looked forward with all her heart to marrying you. She's very
unhappy at home, and her only consolation was the hope that you would
soon take her away."

"Am I managing this or are you, Richmond? I'm a man of the world."

"If I married a woman I did not care for because she was rich, you would
say I had dishonoured myself. The discredit would not be in her wealth,
but in my lack of love."

"That's not the same thing," replied Major Forsyth. "You gave your word,
and now you take it back."

"I promised to do a thing over which I had no control. When I was a boy,
before I had seen anything of the world, before I had ever known a woman
besides my mother, I promised to love Mary Clib