Your roundabout method is all right for tenants and peasants; but among people who possess estates and who control vast interests, girls are--girls are--Well, they are born and brought up to obey and to help forward the interests of their houses." The old man was growing very drunk, and after a long pause he continued: "Have your own way, Malcolm, but don't waste time.

Now that the matter is settled, I want to get it off my hands quickly." "I shall speak to Dorothy on the subject at the first favorable opportunity," I responded; "but I warn you, Sir George, that if Dorothy proves disinclined to marry me, I will not accept her hand." "Never fear for Doll; she will be all right," and we parted.
Doll all right! Had he only known how very far from "all right" Dorothy was, he would have slept little that night.
This brings me to the other change of which I spoke--the change in Dorothy.

Change?
It was a metamorphosis.
A fortnight after the scene at The Peacock I accidentally discovered a drawing made by Dorothy of a man with a cigarro in his mouth.

The girl snatched the paper from my hands and blushed convincingly.
"It is a caricature of--of him," she said.

She smiled, and evidently was willing to talk upon the subject of "him." I declined the topic.
This happened a month or more previous to my conversation with Sir George concerning Dorothy.