“Don’t come in, or else we’ll begin to talk, and that will wake me up,”
she said, seeing me about to enter; “and I’m so dead with sleep I’m sure I
shall be off in five minutes, if you leave me.”
I did as she wished, and returned to the drawing‐room, where I found my
step‐mother in conclave with the three men on more practical matters than
songs and sirens.
Simpson had been summoned for the sole purpose of discussing and settling
what ought in the proper course of things to have been discussed and
settled before my marriage, and Sir Simon Harness was just as anxious as
Mrs. de Winton that everything should be made straight and clear with
regard to Isabel’s fortune and my due control over it. The admiral alone
was indifferent about it, and exhibited a sailor‐like contempt for the
whole affair—in fact, intimated that it was out of all sense and reason
and morality that I should have got a penny of fortune with such a wife.
“I call it immoral, sir,” he declared, scowling at me from under his bushy
eyebrows; “you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
“And so I am, my dear uncle,” I replied hastily. “And that’s just why I
hate having the subject attacked in this precipitate way, as if I wanted
to grab up her money the moment I could lay my hands upon it.”
“Then you can lay your hands upon it?” observed Simpson quietly.
“If I choose,” I said; “my wife is of age, and....”
“Of age!” echoed the admiral, throwing up his hands in amaze. “Why, I
should have given the child fifteen at most!”
“She looks young,” I remarked coolly, while interiorly I was bursting with
conceit; “but she is of age, so there is no reason in the world why I
should bother myself or her about this confounded fortune; besides, I
don’t care a rap if I never see a penny of it!”
“Bravo, Clide! That’s right, my boy!” cried my uncle, clapping me soundly
on the back. “You’re a chip of the old block, and it does my heart good to
hear you. Why, when I was a youngster, ...”
“De Winton,” interrupted Sir Simon, “don’t you think you had better retire
to the piano? Simpson has not come down all the way from London to be
entertained with the follies of your youth. It’s most important that we
should have his opinion about these matters; and if you can’t hold your
tongue or talk sense, you had better make yourself scarce.”
“Talk on,” said the admiral; “I won’t hinder you.” And so they did. I sat
there, feeling as if I were on my trial for some sort of misdemeanor, the
nature of which was unknown to me, but the consequences of which would be
probably appalling if the misdemeanor could be brought home to me. Sir
Simon and my step‐mother were judge and jury, Simpson was counsel for some
mythical antagonist, and the admiral stood by in the capacity of a neutral
but benevolent spectator. Both counsel and judge had been made acquainted
by Mrs. de Winton with all she had to tell. How much or how little that
might be, in Mrs. de Winton’s opinion, I could not say. But clearly on
some shallow inductive evidence she had made out a case vaguely
unfavorable for my wife. No one accused her of anything. Not a word was
said that my irritable pride could take hold of and resent. They spoke of
her as a child whose innocence and ignorance made it doubly incumbent on
them to legislate for and protect, since I was unfit for the duty, while
my morbid delicacy they ignored as beneath contempt.
“We must keep him out of it altogether, I see,” observed Sir Simon when
the conversation had lasted about half an hour. “Leave me to deal with the
child. She won’t suspect me of having married her for her money.”
There was no gainsaying this. Still, I was entering a protest against the
way in which my wishes were being set at naught, when tea was brought in
and cut me short.
“Go and see if Isabel be awake, Clide,” said my uncle, glad to put an end
to the subject; “but don’t disturb her if she’s asleep. She’s not to be
worried for old fogies like us, mind.”
I ran up the stairs lightly, and opened the door as stealthily as a thief.
The light was out. “Isabel!” I said in a low voice. No answer.
I closed the door as noiselessly as I had opened it, and returned to the
drawing‐room.
“She’s as fast asleep as a baby, uncle,” I said. “So I followed your
advice, and left her to sleep it out.”
“Poor little pet! We kept her at it too long last night. You must not do
this sort of thing again, Clide,” observed Sir Simon. “It’s a delicate
flower that you’ve got there, and you must take care of it.”