Developing at length upon this theme, she finally narrowed
down to the point of Darrow's intervention. "My grandson,
Mr. Darrow, calls me illogical and uncharitable because my
feelings toward Miss Viner have changed since I've heard
this news. Well! You've known her, it appears, for some
years: Anna tells me you used to see her when she was a
companion, or secretary or something, to a dreadfully vulgar
Mrs. Murrett. And I ask you as a friend, I ask you as one
of US, to tell me if you think a girl who has had to
knock about the world in that kind of position, and at the
orders of all kinds of people, is fitted to be Owen's wife
I'm not implying anything against her! I LIKED the girl,
Mr. Darrow...But what's that got to do with it? I don't want
her to marry my grandson. If I'd been looking for a wife
for Owen, I shouldn't have applied to the Farlows to find me
one. That's what Anna won't understand; and what you must
help me to make her see."

Darrow, to this appeal, could oppose only the repeated
assurance of his inability to interfere. He tried to make
Madame de Chantelle see that the very position he hoped to
take in the household made his intervention the more
hazardous. He brought up the usual arguments, and sounded
the expected note of sympathy; but Madame de Chantelle's
alarm had dispelled her habitual imprecision, and, though
she had not many reasons to advance, her argument clung to
its point like a frightened sharp-clawed animal.

"Well, then," she summed up, in response to his repeated