Page:The Avenger.djvu/290

272 cut off the end of his cigar and made himself comfortable.

"Now, my young friend," he said, "proceed."

Wrayson did not beat about the bush.

"It's about your daughter Louise, Colonel," he said. "She won't marry me!"

The Colonel pinched his cigar reflectively.

"She always was a most peculiar girl," he affirmed. "Does she give any reasons?"

"That's just what she won't do," Wrayson explained. "That's just why I've come to you. I—I—Colonel, I'm fond of her. I never expected to feel like it about any woman."

The Colonel nodded sympathetically.

"And although it may sound conceited to say so," Wrayson continued, "I believe—no! I'm sure that she's fond of me. She's admitted it. There!"

The Colonel smiled understandingly.

"Well," he said, "then where's the trouble? You don't want my consent. You know that."

"Louise won't marry me," Wrayson repeated. "That's the trouble. She won't explain her attitude. She simply declares that marriage for her is an impossibility."

The Colonel sighed.

"I'm afraid," he murmured, regretfully, "that my daughter is a fool."

"She is anything but that," Wrayson declared. "She has some scruple. What it is I can't imagine. Of course, at first I thought it was because we were, both of us, involved in that Morris Barnes affair. But I know now that it isn't that. Heneage, who threatened me, and indirectly her, has chucked the whole business. Such danger as there was is over. I"