“Well?”

“What is one to do about it?”

“Do about what?”

“Why—­the whole thing!  Don’t you see, I’m responsible in a way.  If I hadn’t called Miss Lang in, Bob Van Brandt wouldn’t have known she was here, and then he would have kept on with Amy.  Now he’s dropped her it’s up to me to make it up to her somehow.”

“It’s up to you to make what up to Amy?”

“How dense you are!  Why, the loss of Bob Van Brandt.”

“But if she didn’t have him, how could she lose him?”

“She didn’t exactly have him, but she had a fighting chance.”

“And she wants to fight?”

“I think she’d be willing to fight, if she saw her way to winning out.”

“Winning out against Miss Lang?”

“Yes, if you want to put it so brutally.”

“I see you are assuming that Miss Lang is keen about Van Brandt.”

“Would you wonder if she were?  It would be her salvation.  Of course, I don’t feel about her any longer as I did once.  I know now she’s a lady, but the fact of her poverty remains.  If she married Bob Van Brandt, she’d be comfortably settled.  She’d have ease and position and, oh, of course she’ll marry him if he asks her.”

“So the whole thing resolves itself down to—­”

“To this—­if one could only devise a way to prevent his asking her.”

“Am I mistaken, or did I hear you say something about putting it brutally, a few moments ago.”

“Well, I know it sounds rather horrid, but a desperate case needs desperate medicine.”

“Catherine, you have asked for suggestions and advice.  My suggestion to Miss Pelham is that she gracefully step down and out.  My advice to you is that you resist the temptation to meddle.  If Mr. Van Brandt wishes to ask Miss Lang to marry him, he has a man’s right to do so.  If Miss Lang wishes to marry Mr. Van Brandt after he has asked her, she has a woman’s right to do so.  Any interference whatsoever would be intolerable.  You can take my advice or leave it.  But if you leave it, if you attempt to mix in, you will regret it, for you will not be honorably playing the game.”

Mrs. Sherman’s lips tightened.  “That’s all very well,” she broke out impatiently.  “That’s the sort of advice men always give to women, and never act on themselves.  It’s not the masculine way to sit calmly by and let another carry off what one wants.  If a man cares, he fights for his rights.  It’s only when he isn’t interested that he’s passive and speaks of honorably playing the game.  All’s fair in love and war!  If you were in Amy’s place—­if the cases were reversed—­and you saw something you’d set your heart on being deliberately taken away from you, I fancy you wouldn’t gracefully step down and out.  At least I don’t see you doing it, in my mind’s eye, Horatio!”