“You need not be afraid on that score,” Kate said bitterly.  “I think I can gauge Mr. Dimsdale’s specious manner at its proper value.”  With this valiant speech she marched off, head in air, to her room, and there wept as though her very heart would break.

John Girdlestone told his son of this scene as they walked home from Fenchurch Street that same day.  “We must look sharp over it,” he said, “or that young fool may get impatient and upset our plans.”

“It’s not such an easy matter,” said his son gloomily.  “I get along so far, but no further.  It’s a more uphill job than I expected.”

“Why, you had a bad enough name among women,” the merchant said, with something approaching to a sneer.  “I have been grieved times out of number by your looseness in that respect.  I should have thought that you might have made your experience of some use now.”

“There are women and women,” his son remarked.  “A girl like this takes as much managing as a skittish horse.”

“Once get her into harness, and I warrant you’ll keep her there quiet enough.”

“You bet,” said Ezra, with a loud laugh.  “But at present she has the pull.  Her mind is still running on that fellow.”

“She spoke bitterly enough of him this morning.”

“So she might, but she thinks of him none the less.  If I could once make her thoroughly realize that he had thrown her over I might catch her on the hop.  She’d marry for spite if she wouldn’t for love.”

“Just so; just so.  Wait a bit.  That can be managed, I think, if you will leave it to me.”

The old man brooded over the problem all day, for from week to week the necessity for the money was becoming more pressing, and that money could only be hoped for through the success of Ezra’s wooing.  No wonder that every little detail which might sway the balance one way or the other was anxiously pondered over by the head of the firm, and that even the fluctuations in oil and ivory became secondary to this great object.

Next day, immediately after they had sat down to dinner, some letters were handed in by the footman.  “Forwarded on from the office, sir,” said the flunkey.  “The clerk says that Mr. Gilray was away and that he did not like to open them.”

“Just like him!” said Girdlestone, peevishly pushing back his plate of soup.  “I hate doing business out of hours.”  He tore the envelopes off the various letters as he spoke.  “What’s this?  Casks returned as per invoice; that’s all right.  Note from Rudder & Saxe—­that can be answered to-morrow.  Memorandum on the Custom duties at Sierra Leone.  Hallo! what have we here?  ’My darling Tom’—­who is this from—­Yours ever, Mary Ossary.’  Why, it’s one of young Dimsdale’s love-letters which has got mixed up with my business papers.  Ha! ha!  I must really apologize to him for having opened it, but he must take his chance of that, if he has his correspondence sent to the office.  I take it for granted that everything there is a business communication.”