"It depends on the girl and the man," she answered demurely. "Not if
they are engaged?"

"Not even then. Coming back late at night too. I'm surprised at Wyvern
being a party to it; and shall let him have a bit of my mind next time I
see him."

"Oh, don't blame him," said Lalante, rather quickly. "I paid him a
surprise visit, and--and--well, under the circumstances I stopped on.
_I_ stopped on. He couldn't very well turn me out. Now could he?"

Le Sage snorted. He had no reply ready. The shrewd practical farmer,
the hard-headed man of business, was floundering more and more
hopelessly out of his depth here.

"Were you never young once, father?" said the girl in her softest tone,
bending over him and sliding an arm round his shoulders.

"Young? Young? Well, Wyvern's not particularly young at any rate, and
ought to have known better." Then, bitterly, "I wish to God we'd never
set eyes on him."

The arm was removed.

"You didn't always wish that. You thought a great deal of him once."

"That was before I found out he was no good," retorted Le Sage, who had
succeeded in lashing himself up again. "Pity, while you were about it,
if you must go in for--for leaving me--you didn't fix upon some solid
and sensible fellow like Warren, for instance, instead of a mere
dreamer. Warren's worth fifty of such wasters as that."

The "leaving me" had softened the girl, but the opprobrious term applied
to her _fiance_ had been as the one nail that driveth out another.

"Don't call him names," she said, coldly, not angrily, thanks to her
power of self-control. "He has been unfortunate, but he is the most
honourable man who ever lived. The word `waster' doesn't apply."

"Oh, I'm not saying anything against his honour," snapped her father.
"But the fact remains that he has never done any good for himself and
never will. He's no chicken, mind; he can't be so very many years
younger than myself. And when a man of his age gets to that age and
is--well, where Wyvern is, the chances are a thousand to one he never
picks himself up again. How's that?"

"How's that? It isn't."

"Isn't it. Well, then, Lalante, now we're well on the subject I want
you to understand that this affair between you and him had better be
broken off. In fact it must be broken off."

The girl was standing erect and her face had gone white. The large,
dark-lashed grey eyes had something of a snap in them.

"It's too late for that now," sh