grow this unhappy nervous affection."

"And then?"

"I know what you mean, Professor Wilson. You mean that a violinist's
position, however successful, would be less than you have a right to
expect for your daughter's husband. Of course that is so, but----"

"But I mean nothing of the sort." The Professor is abrupt and decisive,
as one who repudiates. "I know nothing about positions. However, Mr.
Bradshaw, you are quite right this far--that is what Mrs. Wilson would
have meant. _She_ knows about positions. What _I_ meant was that you
wouldn't have enough to live upon at the best, in any comfort, and
that I shouldn't be able to help you. Suppose you had a large family,
and the nervous affection came back?" His hearer quakes at this crude,
unfeeling forecast of real matrimonial facts. He and Laetitia fully
recognise in theory that people who marry incur families; but, like
every other young couple, would prefer a veil drawn over their
particular case. The young man flinches visibly at the Professor's
needlessly savage hypothesis of disasters. Had he been a rapid and
skilful counsel in his own behalf, he would have at once pounced on
a weak point, and asked how many couples would ever get married at
all, if we were to beg and borrow every trouble the proper people
(whoever they are) are ready to give away and lend. He can only look
crestfallen, and feel about in his mind for some way of saying, "If
I wanted Laetitia to promise to marry me, that would apply. As matters
stand, it is not to the purpose," without seeming to indite the
Professor for prematureness. Of course, the position had been created
entirely by the Dragon. Why could she not have let them alone, as her
husband had said to her? Why not, indeed?

But Master Julius has to see his way out into the open, and he is
merely looking puzzled, and letting a very fair cigar out--and, you
know, they are never the same thing relighted. Perhaps what he does
is as good as anything else.

"I see you are right, sir, and I am afraid I am to blame--I must
be--because my selfish thoughtlessness, or whatever it ought to be
called, has placed us in a position out of which no happiness can
result for either?" He looks interrogatively into the Professor's gold
spectacles, but sees no relaxation in the slightly knitted brow above
them. Their owner merely nods.

"But you needn't take all the blame to yourself," he says. "I've no
doubt my daughter is entitled to her share of it"