"Never!"
"You might, again, instruct your butler to follow you and, as a matter of fact, keep his eye on you for the next month."
"Mudd!"
"Yes."
"Sooner die. Never could look him in the face again."
"Have you any near and trustworthy relatives?"
"Only a nephew, utterly wild and untrustworthy; a chap I've cut out of my will and had to stop his allowance."
"And you are not married—that's a pity. A wife——"
"Hang wives!" cried Simon. "What's the good of talking of the impracticable?"
"Well, there we are," continued Oppenshaw, perfectly unruffled. "I have suggested everything; there is only will left. The greatest friend of a man is his will. Determine in your own mind that this change will not take place. I believe that will be your safest plan. The others I have suggested are all impossible to your sense of amour propre, and, besides that, there is the grave objection that they savour of force. It might have bad consequences to use force to what would be practically the subconscious mind. Your will is quite different. Will can never unbalance mind. In fact, as a famous English neurologist has put it, 'Most cases of mental disturbances are due to an inflated ego—a deflated will.'"