And then I added, smiling: "Have you written to his mother?"

Slowly at last, and more directly, she faced me. "Take care, take care,
or you'll have been more brutal than you'll afterwards like," she said
with an air of patience before the inevitable.

"Never, never! Unless you think me brutal if I ask whether you knew when
Linda wrote."

She had an hesitation. "Yes, she showed me her letter. She wouldn't have
done anything else. I let it go because I didn't know what course was
best. I'm afraid to oppose her to her face."

"Afraid, my dear friend, with that girl?"

"That girl? Much you know about her! It didn't follow you'd come. I
didn't take that for granted."

"I'm like you," I said--"I too am afraid of my nephew. I don't venture
to oppose him to his face. The only thing I could do--once he wished
it--was to come with him."

"I see. Well, there are grounds, after all, on which I'm glad," she
rather inscrutably added.

"Oh I was conscientious about that! But I've no authority; I can neither
drive him nor stay him--I can use no force," I explained. "Look at the
way he's pulling that boat and see if you can fancy me."

"You could tell him she's a bad hard girl--one who'd poison any good