Mrs. Vertrees’s expression had lost none of its anxiety pending the conclusion of this lively bit of analysis, and she shook her head gravely.  “My dear, dear child,” she said, “it seems to me—­It looks —­I’m afraid—­”

“Say as much of it as you can, mamma,” said Mary, encouragingly.  “I can get it, if you’ll just give me one key-word.”

“Everything you say,” Mrs. Vertrees began, timidly, “seems to have the air of—­it is as if you were seeking to—­to make yourself—­”

“Oh, I see!  You mean I sound as if I were trying to force myself to like him.”

“Not exactly, Mary.  That wasn’t quite what I meant,” said Mrs. Vertrees, speaking direct untruth with perfect unconsciousness.  “But you said that—­that you found the latter part of the evening at young Mrs. Sheridan’s unentertaining—­”

“And as Mr. James Sheridan was there, and I saw more of him than at dinner, and had a horribly stupid time in spite of that, you think I—­” And then it was Mary who left the deduction unfinished.

Mrs. Vertrees nodded; and though both the mother and the daughter understood, Mary felt it better to make the understanding definite.

“Well,” she asked, gravely, “is there anything else I can do?  You and papa don’t want me to do anything that distresses me, and so, as this is the only thing to be done, it seems it’s up to me not to let it distress me.  That’s all there is about it, isn’t it?”

“But nothing must distress you!” the mother cried.

“That’s what I say!” said Mary, cheerfully.  “And so it doesn’t.  It’s all right.”  She rose and took her cloak over her arm, as if to go to her own room.  But on the way to the door she stopped, and stood leaning against the foot of the bed, contemplating a threadbare rug at her feet.  “Mother, you’ve told me a thousand times that it doesn’t really matter whom a girl marries.”

“No, no!” Mrs. Vertrees protested.  “I never said such a—­”

“No, not in words; I mean what you meant.  It’s true, isn’t it, that marriage really is ‘not a bed of roses, but a field of battle’?  To get right down to it, a girl could fight it out with anybody, couldn’t she?  One man as well as another?”

“Oh, my dear!  I’m sure your father and I—­”

“Yes, yes,” said Mary, indulgently.  “I don’t mean you and papa.  But isn’t it propinquity that makes marriages?  So many people say so, there must be something in it.”

“Mary, I can’t bear for you to talk like that.”  And Mrs. Vertrees lifted pleading eyes to her daughter—­eyes that begged to be spared.  “It sounds—­almost reckless!”

Mary caught the appeal, came to her, and kissed her gaily.  “Never fret, dear!  I’m not likely to do anything I don’t want to do—­I’ve always been too thorough-going a little pig!  And if it is propinquity that does our choosing for us, well, at least no girl in the world could ask for more than that!  How could there be any more propinquity than the very house next door?”