He had seen from the first that she was a cat, and so far as youth forecasts such things, he felt that she would be a shrew.

But he had a perverse sense of her beauty, and he knew a sort of life in which her power to molest him with her temper could be reduced to the smallest proportions, and even broken to pieces.

Then the consciousness of her money entered.

It was evident that the old man had mentioned his millions in the way of a hint to him of what he might reasonably expect if he would turn and be his son-in-law.

Beaton did not put it to himself in those words; and in fact his cogitations were not in words at all.