Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/142

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him, but could not if he continued to hop about like a pea in a pan and amuse himself, for she could not regard his various enterprises as serious. That he was old enough to settle down and be useful; that she hoped he would. And that she would not care a snap if he were just an ordinary man, but she thought more highly of him than that, and was borne out by her father, who, etc. And she hoped he would not mind her taking enough interest in him to want him to be different. She wrote him a letter calculated to scorn him into compliance. She suggested that perhaps he had not sufficient strength of character, and that she was sorry if such proved the case. She dared him to settle down; she turned herself into an exquisite bully—she was already exquisite—and browbeat the only man in the world.

Down-stairs, Mrs. Dunbar said to Mr. Dunbar:

"She is very much changed since he went away."

And he said: "You know nothing