But now it was different.

What he had said to the Duke, and what the Duke had said to him, that evening on the yacht when they were talking about marriage, was exactly what he had always expected to occur.

The day, he said, must come when the enterprising mamma will get the better of Silas B.Barker junior.

The girl of the season, with her cartload of bouquets slung all over her, her neat figure, her pink-and-white complexion and her matchless staying powers in a ballroom, will descend upon the devoted victim Barker, beak and talons, like the fish-hawk on the poor, simple minnow innocently disporting itself in the crystal waters of happiness.

There will be wedding presents, and a breakfast, and a journey, and a prospect of everlasting misery.