THE IVORY TOWER
reply. "Nothing could be less like her certainly than to appear in such a case to want to force your hand. It makes her position—with exquisite filial piety, you see—extraordinarily delicate."
Prompt as that might be, Gray appeared to show, no sportive sophistry, however charming, could work upon him. "Why should Mr. Gaw want me to marry his daughter?"
Horton again hung about a little. "Why should you be so afraid of ascertaining his idea that you don't so much as peep into what he writes on the subject?"
"Afraid? Am I afraid?" Gray fairly spoke with a shade of the hopeful, as if even that would be richer somehow than drifting.
"Well, you looked at your affair just now as you might at some small dangerous, some biting or scratching, animal whom you're not at all sure of."
"And yet you see I keep him about."
"Yes—you keep him in his cage, for which I suppose you have a key."
"I have indeed a key, a charming little golden key." With which Gray took another turn; once more facing criticism, however, to say with force: "He hated him most awfully!"
Horton appeared to wonder. "Your uncle hated old Gaw?"
"No—I don't think he cared. I speak of Mr. Gaw's own animus. He disliked so mortally his
216
