Chapter 41

"The idea is simply preposterous. I decline to entertain it. I cannot listen to it--not for one moment. Never!"

The speaker was Mrs. Purling, "heiress of the Purlings"; imperious, emphatic, self-opinionated, as women become who have had their own way all their lives through.

"But, mother," went on Harold, her only son--like herself, large and broadly built; but, unlike her, quiet and rather submissive in manner, as one who had been habitually kept under--"I am really in earnest. I am absolutely sick of doing nothing."

"Because you won't do what you might. There is plenty for you to do. Has not the Duchess asked you to Scotland? You refuse--and such a splendid invitation! I have offered you a yacht. I say you may share a river in Norway with dear Lord Faro. I implore you to drive a coach, to keep racehorses, to take your place in the best society, as the representative of the Purling--"

"Pills?" put in Harold, with a queer smile.

His mother's face grew black instantly.

"Harold, do not dare to speak in that way. My father's memory should be respected by my only son."

Old Purling had made all his money by a certain chemical compound which had been adopted by the world at large as a panacea for every