"Father! you must trust me. I am willing to do everything that I ought."
(She was speaking firmly and confidently now.) "If he wishes to marry
me, I will marry him. I love him dearly.... But you must say nothing to
him, not one word. My mother agrees with this. She would have told you
herself; but I said that I would--that I must be brave.... I must learn
to be brave.... I can tell you no more."

He lifted her hands and stood up.

"I see that I understand nothing that you say after all," he said with a
fine fatherly dignity. "I must talk with your mother."


II

He found his wife half an hour later in the ladies' parlour, which he
entered with an air as of nothing to say. With the same air of
disengagement he made sure that Marjorie was nowhere in the room, and
presently sat down.

Mrs. Manners was well past her prime. She was over forty years old and
looked over fifty, though she retained the air of distinction which
Marjorie had derived from her; but her looks belied her, and she had not
one tithe of the subtlety and keenness of her daughter. She was, in
fact, more suited to be wife to her husband than mother to her daughter.

"You have come about the maid," she said instantly, with disconcerting
penetration and frankness. "Well, I know no more than you. She will tell
me nothing but what she has told you. She has some fiddle-faddle in her
head, as maids will, but she will have her way with us, I suppose."