ssion, and not unlike McKellar's when he had explained what he
suffered under the good Lord's weather.

"Is Eddie's game any better?" asked Crystal, feeling her way.

"No," cried her father, contemptuously. "He's rotten, but I'm worse.
And golf-clubs, Crystal! No one can make a club any more. Have you
noticed that? But the truth of the matter is, I'm getting too old
to play golf." And Mr. Cord sat down with a good but unconscious
imitation of a broken old man.

Of course Crystal swept this away. She scolded him a little, pointed
out his recent prowess, and spoke slightingly of all younger athletes,
but she really had not time to do the job thoroughly, for the thought
of Ben, sitting so anxious in the drawing-room alone, hurried her on.

"Anyhow, dear," she said, "I've come to talk to you about something
terribly important. What would you say, father, if I told you I was
engaged?"

Mr. Cord was so startled that he said, what was rare for him, the
first thing that came into his head:

"Not to Eddie?"

The true diplomatist, we have been told, simply takes advantage of
chance, and Crystal was diplomatic. "And suppose it is?" she replied.

"I should refuse my consent," replied her father.

Crystal looked hurt. "Is there anything against Eddie," she asked,
"except his golf?"

"Yes," answered her father, "there are two of the most serious things
in the world against him--first, that he doesn't amount to anything;
and second, that you don't love him."

"No," Crystal admitted, "I don't, but then--love--father, isn't love
rather a serious undertaking nowadays? Is it a particularly helpful
adjunct to marriage? Look at poor Eugenia. Isn't it really more
sensible to marry a nice man who can support one, and then if in time
one does fall in love with another man--"

"Never let me hear you talk like that again, Crystal," said her
father, with a severity and vigor he seldom showed outside of board
meetings. "It's only your ignorance of life that saves you from being
actually revolting. I'm an old man and not sentimental, you'll
grant, but, take my word for it, love is the only hope of pulling off
marriage successfully, and even then it's not easy. As for Eugenia, I
think she's made a fool of herself and is going to be unhappy, but I'd
rather do what she has done than what you're contemplating. At least
she cared for that fellow--"

"I'm glad you feel like that, darling," said Crystal, "because it
isn't Eddie I'm engage