mercial age, and we are the most commercial of the trading
nations. Cossey and Son move with the times, that is all, and they
would rather sell up a dozen families who had dealt with them for two
centuries than lose five hundred pounds, provided, of course, that
they could do so without scandal and loss of public respect, which,
where a banking house is concerned, also means a loss of custom. I am
a great lover of the past myself, and believe that our ancestors' ways
of doing business were, on the whole, better and more charitable than
ours, but I have to make my living and take the world as I find it,
Mr. de la Molle."

"Quite so, Quest; quite so," answered the Squire quietly. "I had no
idea that you looked at these matters in such a light. Certainly the
world has changed a good deal since I was a young man, and I do not
think it has changed much for the better. But you will want your
luncheon; it is hungry work talking about foreclosures." Mr. Quest had
not used this unpleasant word, but the Squire had seen his drift.
"Come into the next room," and he led the way to the drawing-room,
where Ida was sitting reading the /Times/.

"Ida," he said, with an affectation of heartiness which did not,
however, deceive his daughter, who knew how to read every change of
her dear father's face, "here is Mr. Quest. Take him in to luncheon,
my love. I will come presently. I want to finish a note."

Then he returned to the vestibule and sat down in his favourite old
oak chair.

"Ruined," he said to himself. "I can never get the money as things
are, and there will be a foreclosure. Well, I am an old man and I hope
that I shall not live to see it. But there is Ida. Poor Ida! I cannot
bear to think of it, and the old place too, after all these
generations--after all these generations!"

CHAPTER X

THE TENNIS PARTY

Ida shook hands coldly enough with the lawyer, for whom she cherished
a dislike not unmixed with fear. Many women are by nature gifted with
an extraordinary power of intuition which fully makes up for their
deficiency in reasoning force. They do not conclude from the premisses
of their observation, they /know/ that this man is to be feared and
that trusted. In fact, they share with the rest of breathing creation
that self-protective instinct of instantaneous and almost automatic
judgment, given to guard it from the dangers with which it is
continually threat