is so pretty that it must be hard not to disappoint
people later on."

"Perhaps it is not good taste," he said, "but there are crises in life
when taste no longer has restraining force; I only meant to say that
Billy and I have come to an agreement. I lack taste, very well, but
only because I should like to be plain."

"Oh, that is it," rejoined Count Hamilcar, and the cigar trembled a
little in his hand, "then I too shall have to be plain. As I have
always taken an interest in you, I have frequently been called upon to
help you out of all the difficulties in which your recklessness, or, to
express myself less plainly, your interesting disposition has involved
you. Then since you know all that I know of you, you will understand
that for the happiness of my daughter I have not counted on you in any
respect."

Now Boris found his eloquence again, found again all the big words that
he had got ready yesterday in the maple-avenue, and he had to rise from
his chair to say them.

"I know all that you have done for me, uncle. I know my failings, too.
But that is not what decides in this case. Billy's love for me is
undeserved good fortune. Such happiness is always undeserved. But not
to stretch out my hands toward it would be suicide for me, yes sheer
suicide."

"My dear boy," interrupted the count, "the use of the word suicide as a
rhetorical device should be urgently discouraged, in the interests of
good taste."

Boris grew impassioned, and his voice rose to a high key: "I care
nothing for rhetorical devices or good taste. The matter at issue is my
destiny, but that would of course be immaterial, immaterial to you. But
Billy is concerned, Billy gives me my right, and even if I am reckless
and unworthy and a bad match and unattractive, Billy's love is my
right."

He had finished and re-seated himself in his chair. That had relieved
him. The count gently stroked his white nose and retorted,

"The right to fall in love with my daughter I cannot deny you, nor the
right to ask me for the hand of my daughter, but what you just said
sounded rather as if you were asking me in Billy's name for your own
hand."

"I wanted to be open and loyal toward you," replied Boris.

"Oh, did you?" remarked the count. "You call it loyal, as a guest in my
house, to 'come to an agreement,' as you call it, behind my back, with
my seventeen-year-old daughter."

"It was perhaps not correct," said Boris wearily and with a superior
air, "bu