"Do you wish to see whether you can afford it, sir?"

"I wish to see you show more sense--with your confounded 'afford.' Have
you any idea of bankers' books?--bankers' accounts?" Mr. Pole fished his
cheque-book from a drawer and wrote Wilfrid's name and the sum, tore out
the leaf and tossed it to him. "There, I've written to-day. Don't
present it for a week." He rubbed his forehead hastily, touching here
and there a paper to put it scrupulously in a line with the others.
Wilfrid left him, and thought: "Kind old boy! Of course, he always means
kindly, but I think I see a glimpse of avarice as a sort of a sign of age
coming on. I hope he'll live long!"

Wilfrid was walking in the garden, imagining perhaps that he was
thinking, as the swarming sensations of little people help them to
imagine, when Cornelia ran hurriedly up to him and said: "Come with me to
papa. He's ill: I fear he is going to have a fit."

"I left him sound and well, just now," said Wilfrid. "This is your
mania."

"I found him gasping in his chair not two minutes after you quitted him.
Dearest, he is in a dangerous state!"

Wilfrid stept back to his father, and was saluted with a ready "Well?" as
he entered; but the mask had slipped from half of the old man's face, and
for the first time in his life Wilfrid perceived that he had become an
old man.

"Well, sir, you sent for me?" he said.