answered her.

"Don't you think maybe we've been a little--too--severe?"

"I've tried to think so, but--" He shook his head. "Maggie,
he's hopeless, hopeless."

"I don't know much about those things." This was a mere form
of speech. She thought she knew all there was to be known; and
as she was an intelligent woman who had lived a long time and had
a normal human curiosity she did know a great deal. But, after
the fashion of many of the women of the older generation, she had
left undisturbed his delusion that her goodness was the result
not of intelligence but of ignorance. "But I can't help fearing
it isn't right to condemn a young man forever because he was led
away as a boy."

"I can't discuss it with you, Maggie--it's a degradation even to
speak of him before a good woman. You must rely upon my
judgment. Polly must put him out of her head."

"But what am I to tell her? You can't make a woman like our
Pauline put a man out of her life when she loves him unless you
give her a reason that satisfies her. And if you don't give ME a
reason that satisfies me how can I give HER a reason that will
satisfy her?"

"I'll talk to her," said the colonel, after a long pause.
"She must--she shall give him up, mother."