“Let me thoroughly understand you, my darling. You love George Vine’s son—your old friend’s brother?”
“Yes, father,” said Madelaine, in a voice little above a whisper.
“And he has asked you to be his wife?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what answer you gave him.”
“That I would never marry a man so wanting in self-respect.”
“Hah!”
“He said that our parents were rich, that there was no need for him to toil as he had done, but that if I consented it would give him an impetus to work.”
“And you declined conditionally?”
“I declined absolutely, father.”