Several times he said to them "You don't make friends, as you ought;" and their repudiation of the charge made him repeat: "You don't make friends--home friends." "The house can be as full as we care to have it, papa." "Yes, acquaintances! All very well, but I mean friends--rich friends." "We will think of it, papa," said Adela, "when we want money." "It isn't that," he murmured.
Adela had written to Wilfrid a full account of her interview with her father.

Wilfrid's reply was laconic.

"If you cannot stand a week of the brogue, give up Besworth, by all means." He made no further allusion to the place.

They engaged an opera-box, for the purpose of holding a consultation with him in town.

He wrote evasively, but did not appear, and the ladies, with Emilia between them, listened to every foot-fall by the box-door, and were too much preoccupied to marvel that Emilia was just as inattentive to the music as they were.