what Mabel had confided to me. I said that I would neither approve nor condemn her action in bringing me into the business, but that she was suffering, and I considered it my right to ask how he could justify himself in placing her in such a position.'
'And how did he take that?' said Trent, smiling secretly at the landscape. The picture of this mildest of men calling the formidable Manderson to account pleased him.
'Not very well,' Mr. Cupples replied sadly. 'In fact, far from well. I can tell you almost exactly what he said–it wasn't much. He said, "See here, Cupples, you don't want to butt in. My wife can look after herself. I've found that out, along with other things." He was perfectly quiet–you know he was said never to lose control of himself–though there was a light in his eyes that would have frightened a man who was in the wrong, I dare say. But I had been thoroughly roused by his last remark, and the tone of it, which I cannot reproduce. You see,' said Mr. Cupples simply, 'I love my niece. She is the only child that there has been in our–in my house. Moreover, my wife brought her up as a girl, and any
