"Why so?" asked the son and heir. "Why shouldn't my permission be
asked?"

"What do you know about Lucy or girls or anything? What ever did
you say?"

"I said to Cecil, 'Take her or leave her; it's no business of
mine!'"

"What a helpful answer!" But her own answer, though more normal
in its wording, had been to the same effect.

"The bother is this," began Freddy.

Then he took up his work again, too shy to say what the bother
was. Mrs. Honeychurch went back to the window.

"Freddy, you must come. There they still are!"

"I don't see you ought to go peeping like that."

"Peeping like that! Can't I look out of my own window?"

But she returned to the writing-table, observing, as she passed
her son, "Still page 322?" Freddy snorted, and turned over two
leaves. For a brief space they were silent. Close by, beyond the
curtains, the gentle murmur of a long conversation had never
ceased.

"The bother is this: I have put my foot in it with Cecil most