"Please sit down, Signor Carella," said Philip in
Italian. "Mrs. Herriton is rather agitated, but there is no
reason we should not be calm. Might I offer you a
cigarette? Please sit down."

He refused the cigarette and the chair, and remained
standing in the full glare of the lamp. Philip, not averse
to such assistance, got his own face into shadow.

For a long time he was silent. It might impress Gino,
and it also gave him time to collect himself. He would not
this time fall into the error of blustering, which he had
caught so unaccountably from Lilia. He would make his power
felt by restraint.

Why, when he looked up to begin, was Gino convulsed with
silent laughter? It vanished immediately; but he became
nervous, and was even more pompous than he intended.

"Signor Carella, I will be frank with you. I have come
to prevent you marrying Mrs. Herriton, because I see you
will both be unhappy together. She is English, you are
Italian; she is accustomed to one thing, you to another.
And--pardon me if I say it--she is rich and you are poor."

"I am not marrying her because she is rich," was the
sulky reply.

"I never suggested that for a moment," said Philip