Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/200

 system of marriage working to a logical conclusion. And if I put it squarely to my kinsman, Albert John, who is by no means a fool, he'd be the first to admit it. No, it doesn't matter what your arguments are, if you override the call of the blood sooner or later there's bound to be big trouble."

The conviction of the tone, the urgency of the manner were indeed hard to meet. From the only point of view that really mattered it was impossible to gainsay him, and she was far too intelligent to try. Suddenly she broke away from him and in a wretched state of indecision and unhappiness flung herself into a chair.

"The whole thing's as clear as daylight." Pitilessly he followed up the advantage he had won. "There's really no need to state it. And once more, to come down to bedrock, far better to make an end of Bridport House and all that it stands for—just what it does stand for I have not been able to make out—than that it should perpetuate a race of inbred incompetents who are merely a fixed charge on the community."

"Oh, you don't see—you don't see!" The words were rather feeble, and rather wild, but just then they were all she could offer. Yet in spite of herself, and in spite of the half-promise the intensely unhappy Aunt Harriet had wrung from her on the previous afternoon, the clear-cut determination of this young man, his force and his breadth, his absolute conviction were beginning to tell heavily.

"You are going to Bridport House to have a word with my kinsman. And if you're true blue—and I know you are that—you will make him see honest daylight. And it ought to be easy, because he has only to look