e lady looking wistfully toward a nunnery.
In this case it arose, I believe, over Teddy Anstruther, who for a
cousin was undeniably very attentive to Margaret; and in the natural
course of events they would have made it up before the week was out
had not Frederick R. Woods selected this very moment to interfere in
the matter.

Ah, _si vieillesse savait!_

The blundering old man summoned Billy into his study and ordered him
to marry Margaret Hugonin, precisely as the Colonel might have ordered
a private to go on sentry-duty. Ten days earlier Billy would have
jumped at the chance; ten days later he would probably have suggested
it himself; but at that exact moment he would have as willingly
contemplated matrimony with Alecto or Medusa or any of the Furies.
Accordingly, he declined. Frederick R. Woods flew into a pyrotechnical
display of temper, and gave him his choice between obeying his
commands and leaving his house forever--the choice, in fact, which he
had been according Billy at very brief intervals ever since the boy
had had the measles, fifteen years before, and had refused to take the
proper medicines.

It was merely his usual manner of expressing a request or a
suggestion. But this time, to his utter horror and amaze, the boy took
him at his word and left Selwoode within the hour.

Billy's life, you see, was irrevocably blighted. It mattered very
little what became of him; personally, he didn't care in the least.
But as for that fair, false, fickle woman--perish the thought! Sooner
a thousand deaths! No, he would go to Paris and become a painter of
worldwide reputation; the money his father had left him would easily
suffice for his simple wants. And some day, the observed of all
observers in some bright hall of gaiety, he would pass her coldly by,
with a cynical smile upon his lips, and she would grow pale and totter
and fall into the arms of the bloated Silenus, for whose title she had
bartered her purely superficial charms.

Yes, upon mature deliberation, that was precisely what Billy decided
to do.

Followed dark days at Selwoode. Frederick R. Woods told Margaret of
what had occurred; and he added the information that, as his wife's
nearest relative, he intended to make her his heir.

Then Margaret did what I would scarcely have expected of Margaret.
She turned upon him like a virago and informed Frederick R. Woods
precisely what she thought of him; she acquainted him with the fact
that he was a sord