"She said that she never intended to listen to him, and now you may be sure that she will be Lady Mabel Weston very shortly."
"That depends upon Dicky's behavior," said Cannington sharply; "unless he is all that I can desire he sha'n't marry my sister."
"You leave things in the hands of Mabel, my son. She'll manage the affair all right. But Marr----"
"Damn him! I should like to give him a thrashing."
"I don't see upon what grounds you could, Cannington. It is true that he suppressed the fact that he had a grown-up daughter, but that is not a crime, and the suppression was due only to vanity. I daresay he intended to tell the truth if Mabel had accepted him."
"I daresay," muttered the boy, still wrathful, "but I wouldn't give the little beast the benefit of the doubt. I can't exactly call him to account either legally or socially, I suppose, but if he dares to speak to me again----" Cannington's fist clenched itself in his deerskin glove.
"I don't think you will set eyes on him for many a long day," I said carelessly; "he'll stop in the States and marry."
"What does his daughter say?"
"She is very much cut up at the way in which he has behaved. Fancy his having all that money--one hundred thousand pounds--and keeping his daughter down to the simple necessaries of life."
"Perhaps he hasn't the money at all," said Cannington abruptly.