And----" here he looked searchingly at his listeners--"I'd like to see you settled before I go.

What ?" Lettie's calm and judicial character came out in the first words she spoke.

She had listened carefully to Cotherstone; now she turned to Bent.
"Windle," she said, as quietly as if she were asking the most casual of questions, "wouldn't it upset all your arrangements for next year?
You see, father," she went on, turning to Cotherstone, "Windle had arranged everything.

He was going to have the whole of the spring and summer away from business; we were going on the Continent for six months.

And that would have to be entirely altered and----" "We could alter it," interrupted Bent.