"Do you suppose I'd ever touch a cent of your father's money?"--a speech
not rankly hypocritical, inasmuch as the young man, who made his own
discriminations, had never been guilty, and proposed to himself never
to be, of the indelicacy of tugging at his potential father-in-law's
purse-strings with his own hand. He had talked to Mr. Dosson by the hour
about his master-plan of making the touchy folks themselves fall
into line, but had never dreamed this man would subsidise him as an
interesting struggler. The only character in which he could expect it
would be that of Francie's accepted suitor, and then the liberality
would have Francie and not himself for its object. This reasoning
naturally didn't lessen his impatience to take on the happy character,
so that his love of his profession and his appreciation of the girl at
his side now ached together in his breast with the same disappointment.
She saw that her words had touched him like a lash; they made him for a
moment flush to his eyes. This caused her own colour to rise--she could
scarcely have said why--and she hurried along again. He kept close to
her; he argued with her; he besought her to think it over, assuring her
he had brains, heart and material proofs of a college education. To this
she replied that if he didn't leave her alone she should cry--and how
would he like that, to bring her back in such a state to the others? He
answered "Damn the others!" but it didn't help his case, and at last
he broke out: "Will you just tell me this, then--is it because you've
promised Miss Delia?" Francie returned that she hadn't promised Miss
Delia anything, and her companion went on: "Of course I know what she
has got in her head: she wants to get you into the smart set--the grand
monde, as they call it here; but I didn't suppose you'd let her fix your
life for you. You were very different before HE turned up."

"She never fixed anything for me. I haven't got any life and I don't
want to have any," Francie veraciously pleaded. "And I don't know who
you're talking about either!"

"The man without a country. HE'LL pass you in--that's what your sister
wants."

"You oughtn't to abuse him, because it was you that presented him," the
girl pronounced.

"I never presented him! I'd like to kick him."

"We should never have seen him if it hadn't been for you," she
maintained.

"That's a fact, but it doesn't make me love him any better. He's the
poorest kind there is."

"I d