“Then you do not care for him?” said Van Heldre again.
“I’m afraid I care for him very much indeed, father,” said Madelaine firmly; “and it grieves me so to see him drifting away that I determined to ask you to come to his help.”
“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?”
“In brief, that I would never marry a man so wanting in self-respect and independence as he has shown himself to be.”
“Hah!”
It was a softly-uttered ejaculation, full of content.