"I may or I may not before we part to-night. You refused to give me a promise; I refuse to give you one. I might well take offence at the imputation that I have paid a spy to watch you."
"The suspicion was in itself an offence. I have allowed you to go your way, Kingsley, in the belief and hope that your way and mine were one, and that you would do nothing to disgrace me."
"We may take different views. As a young man you have had what is called your 'fling.' I made you a most liberal allowance--"
"For which I have always been deeply grateful, father," said Kingsley, hoping to turn the current of his father's wrath. It smote him with keen apprehension, for Nansie's sake and his own, that the anger his father displayed when he first mentioned the name of Loveday should be no longer apparent, and that Mr. Manners spoke in his usual calm and masterful voice.
"I made you a most liberal allowance," repeated Mr. Manners, "which you freely spent. I did not demur to that; it pleased me that you should be liberal and extravagant, and prove yourself the equal in fortune, as you are in education and manners, of those with whom you mixed. You committed some follies, which I overlooked--and paid for."
"It is the truth, father. I got into debt and you cleared me."
"If I am not mistaken--and in figures I seldom am--I paid your debts for you on three occasions."
"I am not wishful to take undue credit to myself by reminding you of this; it is only that I would have you bear in mind that I have endeavored to make your life easy and pleasurable, and to do my duty by you. Nor will I make any comparison between your career as a young man and mine at the same age. I am satisfied, and I suppose you are the same."
"I think, father," said Kingsley, "that I should have been content to work as you did."
"Not as I did, because we started from different standpoints. Pounds, shillings, and pence were of great importance to me, and I used to count them very jealously. I value money now perhaps as little as you do, but I know its value better than you, and what it can buy in a large way--in the way I have already explained to you. For that reason, and for no other, it is precious to me. There are men who have risen to wealth by discreditable means; that is not my case; what I possess has been fairly worked for and fairly earned. All through my life I have acted honorably and straightforwardly."