"Girls always try to persuade you you're ill--that's all," returned Mr.
Pole. His voice was subdued; but turning to Cornelia, he fired up: "It's
preposterous to tell a man who carries on a business like mine, you've
observed for a long while that he's queer!--There, my dear child, I know
that you mean well. I shall look all right the day you're married."

This allusion, and the sudden kindness, drew a storm of tears to
Cornelia's eyelids.

"Papa! if you will but tell me what it is!" she moaned.

A nervous frenzy seemed to take possession of him. He ordered her out of
the room.

She was gone, but his arm was still stretched out, and his expression of
irritated command did not subside.

Wilfrid took his arm and put it gently down on the chair, saying: "You're
not quite the thing to-day, sir."

"Are you a fool as well?" Mr. Pole retorted. "What do you know of, to
make me ill? I live a regular life. I eat and drink just as you all do;
and if I have a headache, I'm stunned with a whole family screaming as
hard as they can that I'm going to die. Damned hard! I say, sir, it's--"
He fell into a feebleness.

"A little glass of brandy, I think," Wilfrid suggested; and when Mr. Pole
had gathered his mind he assented, begging his son particularly to take
precautions to prevent any one from entering the room until he had tasted
the reviving liquor.