'I have read, papa,' said she, 'that those "who have neither character nor conscience may drift, or let others shape the course for them; but the great thing is to be true to yourself."'
'Yourself—and some penniless cur, like that at Aldershot! Go—I am disgusted!' exclaimed Sir Ranald, with a sudden gush of querulous anger.
Alison remained silent. She knew not that the fatal end was drawing so near now, otherwise she must have temporised with him more; and she thought—
'But for my love for Bevil, to please papa I might have yielded—so many girls are drawn or thrust into hateful or grotesque marriages by want of money, friends, or a home.'
But when she thought this, Alison was ignorant of what so many knew, and her father should have known—the private character of Lord Cadbury, or rather his want of it, as he was simply an old vaurien.
'Novels have turned your head, Alison,' said Sir Ranald, in a low voice. 'You expect to be over head and ears—of a necessity—in love with a hero; well,' he added, through his set teeth, 'this fellow Goring is not one—didn't he shirk the Ashanti affair?'
'Oh, papa, how cruel and unjust of you! He won three medals, and was twice wounded in India.'
'Ah! you know all that?'
'He was "detailed" for the depôt, as it is called—so Archie told me—and had to remain at home.'
'Ah! you know all that too!' exclaimed her father, weakly, but in a sneering tone.