“You came to Dunbury to tell Phil he had to marry me because I was in love with him and wanted to marry him.  He couldn’t very well marry me and keep on living in Dunbury because I wouldn’t care to live in Dunbury.  Therefore he would have to emigrate to a place I would care to live in and he couldn’t very well do that unless he had a very considerable income because spending money was one of my favorite sports both indoor and outdoor and I wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t keep right on playing it to the limit.  Therefore, again, the very simple solution of the whole thing was for you to offer Phil a suitable salary so that we could marry at once and live in the suitable place and say, ’Go to it.  Bless you my children.  Bring on your wedding bells—­I mean bills.  I’ll foot ’em.’  Put in the rough, that was the plan wasn’t it, my dear parent?”

“Practically,” admitted the dear parent with a wry grin.  “How did you work it out so accurately?”

Carlotta made a face at him.

“I worked it out so accurately because it was all old stuff.  The plan wasn’t at all original with you.  I drew the first draft of it myself last June up on the top of Mount Tom, took Phil up there on purpose indeed to exhibit it to him.”

“Humph!” muttered Harrison Cressy.

“Unfortunately Phil didn’t at all care for the exhibit because it happened that I had fallen in love with a man instead of a puppet.  I could have told you coming to Dunbury was no earthly use if you had consulted me.  Phil did not take to your plan, did he?”

“He did not.”

“And he told you—­he didn’t care for me any more?” Carlotta’s voice was suddenly a little low.

“He did not.  In fact I gathered he was fair-to-middling fond of you still, in spite of your abominable behavior.”

“Phil, didn’t say I had behaved abominably Daddy.  You know he didn’t.  He might think it but he wouldn’t ever say it—­not to you anyway.”

“He didn’t.  That is my contribution and opinion.  Carlotta, I wish to the Lord Harry you would marry Philip Lambert!”

Carlotta’s lovely eyes flashed surprise and delight before she lowered them.

“But, Daddy,” she said.  “He hasn’t got very much money.  And it takes a great deal of money for me.”

“You had better learn to get along with less then,” snapped Harrison Cressy.  “I tell you, Carlotta, money is nothing—­the stupidest, most useless, rottenest stuff in the world.”

Carlotta opened her eyes very wide.

“Is that what you thought when you came to Dunbury?” she asked gravely.

“No.  It is what I have learned to think since I have been in Dunbury.”

“But you—­you wouldn’t want me to live here?” probed Carlotta.

“My child, I would rather you would live here than any place in the whole world.  I’ve traveled a million miles since I saw you last, been back in the past with your mother.  Things look different to me now.  I don’t want what I did for you.  At least what I want hasn’t changed.  That is the same always—­your happiness.  But I have changed my mind as to what makes for happiness.”