"By Jove!" John Martin murmured. "Fancy my having a daughter like Gladys! I ought to be jolly well pleased. And so I am. The only thing I fear, is, that she'll marry some one who isn't half good enough for her! But who would be good enough for her! God alone knows! And God alone knows whether she or I ought to decide! Gladys!"
"Hulloa!", and the next moment a vision in pink emerged from the bushes.
"Gladys, I want to confide in you!"
"What's wrong, Daddy, dear?" Gladys said, thrusting an arm through his and walking him gently along with her through the glade. "You weren't at all nice to me when we parted this morning, but you look so wearied that I'll be magnanimous and forgive you. What is it?"
"Why it's like this!'" John Martin said, putting his arm round her and holding her close to him, as he used to do when, a little girl, she came sidling up to him for sugar-plums. "Poor Dick's affairs are in a terrible muddle. Unknown to me he speculated right and left, and he has not only muddled through everything he had, but he has left a number of debts, and unfortunately I have to meet them."
"You, Father! But why you?" Gladys cried.
"Because they were incurred in the name of the Firm. I can meet them all right, but it will be a big drain on my resources. That's worry number one. Worry number two is about young Davenport—Shiel. I don't know what to do about him. He was entirely dependent on Dick. His work as an artist doesn't bring him in enough to keep him in tobacco, and the worst of it is he doesn't seem capable of turning his hand to anything else; I can't see him starve, so I shall have to allow him something."
"He seemed to me very intelligent," Gladys observed, "couldn't you take him into the Firm? Who are you going to have in his uncle's place?"
"That's the trouble!" John Martin replied. "I do feel I want some one. I am getting on in years, my brain is not so vigorous as it used to be, and I can't go on inventing fresh tricks ad infinitum. Moreover, I need assistance in the purely business side of the concern. I want some one who is both business-like and inventive—some one young, brilliant and reliable."
"You couldn't sell out I suppose?"