Ah, poor Rose! She was not the old man's darling and sovereign, as she had hoped and planned to be. She was the tyrant's slave and victim.
A man of Aaron Rockharrt's temperament seldom, at the age of seventy-seven, becomes a lover; and never, at any age, a woman's slave.
Mr. Fabian now got into the carriage, and sat down on the front cushion opposite his father and step-mother. Mr. Clarence was following him in, when Mr. Rockharrt roughly interfered.
"What are you about here, Clarence? What are you going to do?"
"Take my seat in the carriage, of course, sir," answered the young man, with a surprised look.
"You are going to do nothing of the sort! I don't choose to have the horses overtasked in this manner. I myself, with Fabian and my coachman, to say nothing of Mrs. Rockharrt, are weight enough for one pair of horses, and you can't come in here. Where's Sylvan?"
"On the box seat beside the driver."
"Really?" demanded the Iron King, in a sarcastic tone, "How many more of you desire to be drawn by one pair of horses? Tell Sylvan to come down off that."
"But, sir, there is not a single conveyance of any description at the station," urged Clarence.
"Indeed! And pray what do you call your own two pairs of sturdy legs? Are they not strong enough to convey you from here to North End, where you can get the hotel hack? And, by the way, why did you not engage the hack to come here and take you back?"