"Come! I know you can," he said. "You've been through the treadmill. You know all about it and it doesn't attract you. This infernal chase after excitement—it's like a spreading fever. There's no peace for anyone now-a-days. I want you to stop it. You've got that sort of influence. I sensed it directly I saw you. You've got that priceless possession—a quiet spirit. She wouldn't go tearing over the country racing and gambling and then card-playing far into the night if you were there to pull her up. She'd be ashamed—with anyone like you looking on."
"Would she?" said Juliet. "I wonder. And how do you know that that sort of thing doesn't attract me?"
"Of course I know it. You carry it in your face. You're a woman—not a dancing marionette. You wouldn't despise a woman's duties because they interfered with pleasure. You were made in a different mould. Anyone can see that."
Juliet was smiling a little. "I can't claim to be anything very great," she said. "But certainly, I was never very fond of cards."
"Of course you weren't. You've too much sense to do anything to excess. Now look here, Miss Moore! You're coming, aren't you? You'll give the thing a trial. I promise you, you shan't be bullied or overworked. It's such an opportunity, for my wife really has taken a fancy to you. And she can be quite decent to anyone when she likes. You can bring the dog along," continued the squire. "You can have your own sitting-room—your own maid, if you want one. You can come and go as you choose. No one will interfere with you. All I want you to do is to put the brake on my wife, make her take an interest in her home, make her take life seriously. She's not at all strong. She doesn't give herself a chance. Unless I fetch in a doctor and practically keep her in bed by main force she never gets any decent rest. Why, she's hardly ever in her room before two in the morning. It's almost a form of madness with her, this ceaseless round. I can't prevent it. I'm a busy man myself." He suddenly got to his feet with a jerk and stood looking down at her with sombre eyes. "I'm a busy man," he repeated. "I have my ambitions, and I work for them. I work hard. But the one thing I want more than anything else on earth is a son to succeed me. And if I can't have that—there's nothing else that counts."
He spoke with bitter vehemence, beating restlessly against his heel with his whip. But Juliet still sat silent, looking out before her at the golden pink of the apple-trees in the sunset light with grave quiet eyes.
He went on morosely, egotistically, "I don't know what I've done that I shouldn't have what practically every labourer on my estate has got. I may not have been absolutely impeccable in my youth. I've never yet met a man who was—with the single exception of Dick Green who hasn't much temptation to be anything else. But I've lived straight on the whole. I've played the game—or tried to. And yet—after five years of marriage—I'm still without an heir, and likely to remain so, as far as I can see. She says I'm mad on that point." He spoke resentfully. "But after all, it's what I married for. I don't see why I should be cheated out of the one thing I want most, do you?"
Juliet's eyes came up to his, slowly, somewhat reluctantly. "I'm afraid I haven't much sympathy with you," she said.
"You haven't?" he looked amazed.
"No." She paused a moment. "It was a pity you told me. You see, a woman doesn't care to be married—just for that."