"You don't like him?" questioned Hendle, greatly surprised.
"No," answered Miss Mallien, "I don't. He's double-faced. We'll hand him over to father. He can deal with him," and in spite of Hendle's objections, she went away repeating her doubts of the brilliant barrister.
For a widower with one grown-up daughter, Mr. Julius Mallien was very well off on an income of five hundred a year, for which he did not do a stroke of work. Like the lilies of the field he toiled not, neither did he spin, and, if not quite a Solomon-in-all-his-glory, he was quite comfortable, enjoying some of the luxuries of life as well as all the necessities. Born lazy and idle, he had never earned a single penny for himself during the fifty-odd years of his existence. First he had lived on his father and mother; afterward on his wife. Now that all three were dead, he managed to exist in a pleasantly easy way on the accumulated moneys they had left him. His picturesque six-roomed cottage, standing in a quarter acre of garden on the outskirts of Barship, was rented from the Squire at twenty pounds a year, yet he grumbled like an Irish tenant at the exactions of his landlord. Dorinda, with the aid of one small servant, looked after the house, and Mallien was quite untroubled with domestic details. His daughter catered for him in strict accordance with his tastes, wholly setting her own aside, and from one year to another there was no change in the economy of the establishment. It therefore came about in quite a natural manner that Mr. Mallien spent the greater part of his income on himself.
"I shall allow you so much for housekeeping and so much to dress on," he said to Dorinda, when she returned from school to become his companion, or rather his domestic drudge. "One hundred pounds yearly must cover all expenses, food, servants, clothes and rent; and if you exceed that, you'll hear about it."
As it took Dorinda some time to get used to this scrimping, she frequently made mistakes, and did hear about it. In fact, she was scolded so often that she became quite callous to her father's tempers, and finally, when he went too far, the girl who was not lacking in spirit, told him what she thought of his selfish conduct. There was a royal row, in which Dorinda came off best, and when things were again settled Mallien was careful not to provoke her anger again more than his disagreeable temper could help. On the whole, father and daughter got on very well together, but there was little affection displayed by either of them: on Mallien's part because he hated what he called sentiment, and on Dorinda's because her egotistical parent always kept her at arm's length. The boy-and-girl love of Miss Mallien for her cousin, which had strengthened into the staunch love of man and woman, was the sole thing which enabled the girl to endure the drab existence at The Cottage. It was always something to look forward to that one day she would become Rupert's wife, and then would be quit forever of her father's uncomfortable whims.