“But, Miss Guion—­” he began to protest.

“Please go in,” she commanded, throwing open, as she spoke, the door of her father’s room.

XV

Meanwhile, down on the lawn, Drusilla and Ashley were talking things over from their own points of view.  There had been a second of embarrassment when they were first left alone, which Drusilla got over by pointing with her parasol to an indistinguishable spot in the stretch of tree-tops, spires, and gables sloping from the gate, saying: 

“That’s our house—­the one with the little white cupola.”

He made no pretense to listen or to look.  “She says she doesn’t want to marry me.”

He made the statement dispassionately, as though laying down a subject for academic discussion.

It was some little time before she could think what to say.

“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” she risked at last.

“Doesn’t surprise you?”

She shook her head.  “On the contrary, I should be very much astonished if she did—­now.  I should be astonished at any woman in her position wanting to marry a man in yours.”

“I don’t care a hang for my position.”

“Oh yes, you do.  And even if you didn’t, it wouldn’t matter.  It’s naturally a case in which you and she have to see from different angles.  With you it’s a point of honor to stand by her; with her it’s the same thing not to let you.”

“In honor it’s the positive, not the negative, that takes precedence, and the positive happens to be mine.”

“I don’t think you can argue that way, you know.  What takes precedence of everything else is—­common sense.”

“And do you mean to say that common sense requires that she shall give me up?”

“I shouldn’t go so far as to assert that.  But I shouldn’t mind saying that if she did give you up there’d be a lot of common sense in her doing it.”

“On whose account?  Mine?”

“Yes; and hers.  Perhaps chiefly on hers.  You can hardly realize the number of things she has to take care of—­and you’d be one more.”

“I confess I don’t seize your drift.”

“It’s not very abstruse, however.  Just think.  It isn’t as if Cousin Henry had fallen ill, or had died, or had gone to pieces in any of the ordinary ways.  Except for his own discomfort, he might just as well have been tried and sentenced and sent to prison.  He’s been as good as there.  Every one knows it’s only a special providence that he didn’t go.  But if he’s escaped that by the skin of his teeth, he hasn’t escaped a lot of other things.  He hasn’t escaped being without a penny in the world.  He hasn’t escaped having his house sold over his head and being turned out into the streets.  He hasn’t escaped reaching a perfectly impotent old age, with not a soul on this earth to turn to but Olivia.”

“What about me?”

“Would you take him?”