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Rh “So even your gratitude has its limits!” he sneered. “Another time I should protest a little less, if I were you!”

“You ask the one impossible thing,” replied Tom, with a groan.

“Pardon me; I did not ask it,” rejoined Daintree, whose blacker moods inspired him with a perfect genius for picking quarrels. “Though you have not honoured me with your confidence, it may relieve you to hear that I haven’t the least desire to tamper with your loyalty to some lady unknown. I ask you to choose a wife—not to marry her.”

“I don’t understand you, sir,” said Tom respectfully.

“You will if you condescend to listen. The woman Fawcett says we shall require another servant here. I don’t believe a word of it; the ladies are bringing their own maid with them; but this idle, impudent, ungrateful woman holds a pistol to my head and threatens to desert me at this juncture if I don’t get her a girl. I’ve had her here bullying me for the last half-hour, and this is the hole that I’m in: either the Fawcetts leave me this day month—when I shall want them most—or I must apply for a convict woman, and God knows what kind they’ll send me! Now, if you applied for a wife you’d have your pick and choose a decent one; and, as I say, there’s no earthly reason why you should ever marry her.”

“Surely it would be unfair not to,” objected Tom, who would have used a stronger adjective to anybody else.

“Unfair on the girl? Not at all; you simply let her off a blind bargain, and she gains good wages and a comfortable home. The girl comes out of it deuced well;