"A long time saying good-night, was I, Pops? And you think I've been flirting? Well, I haven't, and I couldn't have if I'd wanted to. Mr. Lisle never flirts. Joe pretends to sometimes, and Sidney—does. But Mr. Lisle—never!"
"That needn't mean that a man has no serious intentions," Mr. Sarradet opined.
She smiled. "With the English I think it does. We're not quite English, even after all this time, are we? At least you and I aren't; Raymond is, I think."
"Raymond's a goose, English or not," said the father impatiently. "He's in debt again, and I have to pay! I won't leave my business to a spendthrift."
"Oh, he'll get over it. He is silly but—only twenty-two. Pops!"
"And at twenty you've as shrewd a head as I know on your shoulders! Get over it he must or——!" An indignant gulp of his 'night-cap' ended the sentence.
"If you let him go in for something that he liked better than the business——" she began.
"What business has he not to like the business! It's kept us in comfort for a hundred and fifty years. Isn't it good enough for him? It's been good enough for me and my forefathers. We've known what we were; we've never pretended to be anything else. We're honest merchants—shop-keepers. That's what we are."
"Have patience, dear, I'll talk to him," she promised gently, and soothed the old fellow, whose bark was worse than his bite.
"Well, he'll come to me for a cheque once too often, that's all," he grumbled, as he kissed his daughter and took himself off to bed.