If Torry had found that Donna Maria was an obstinate woman he speedily discovered that Mr. Leighbourne was a fool. Old, narrow-minded, and egotistical, the banker was one of those pig-headed men who are the despair of reasonable mortals. Once an idea was put into his head it could not be got out again, and he constantly referred to his age and worldly experience as legitimate reasons for his entertaining the most preposterous ideas. He resembled closely those dogged, mulish Kings, Charles I. and Louis XVI., and was as bad to deal with as the two of them rolled into one. Never was there a man less open to conviction.