Romayne refused to follow it.

“Talk on any other topic that you like, Mrs. Eyrecourt.  I request you—­don’t oblige me to use a harder word—­I request you to spare Father Benwell and myself any further expression of your opinion on controversial subjects.”

A son-in-law may make a request, and a mother-in-law may decline to comply.  Mrs. Eyrecourt declined to comply.

“No, Romayne, it won’t do.  I may lament your unhappy temper, for my daughter’s sake—­but I know what I am about, and you can’t provoke me.  Our reverend friend and I understand each other.  He will make allowances for a sensitive woman, who has had sad experience of conversions in her own household.  My eldest daughter, Father Benwell—­a poor foolish creature—­was converted into a nunnery.  The last time I saw her (she used to be sweetly pretty; my dear husband quite adored her)—­the last time I saw her she had a red nose, and, what is even more revolting at her age, a double chin.  She received me with her lips pursed up, and her eyes on the ground, and she was insolent enough to say that she would pray for me.  I am not a furious old man with a long white beard, and I don’t curse my daughter and rush out into a thunderstorm afterward—­but I know what King Lear felt, and I have struggled with hysterics just as he did.  With your wonderful insight into human nature, I am sure you will sympathize with and forgive me.  Mr. Penrose, as my daughter tells me, behaved in the most gentleman-like manner.  I make the same appeal to your kind forbearance.  The bare prospect of our dear friend here becoming a Catholic—­”

Romayne’s temper gave way once more.

“If anything can make me a Catholic,” he said, “your interference will do it.”

“Out of sheer perversity, dear Romayne?”

“Not at all, Mrs. Eyrecourt.  If I became a Catholic, I might escape from the society of ladies, in the refuge of a monastery.”

Mrs. Eyrecourt hit him back again with the readiest dexterity.

“Remain a Protestant, my dear, and go to your club.  There is a refuge for you from the ladies—­a monastery, with nice little dinners, and all the newspapers and periodicals.”  Having launched this shaft, she got up, and recovered her easy courtesy of look and manner.  “I am so much obliged to you, Father Benwell.  I have not offended you, I hope and trust?”

“You have done me a service, dear Mrs. Eyrecourt.  But for your salutory caution, I might have drifted into controversial subjects.  I shall be on my guard now.”

“How very good of you!  We shall meet again, I hope, under more agreeable circumstances.  After that polite allusion to a monastery, I understand that my visit to my son-in-law may as well come to an end.  Please don’t forget five o’clock tea at my house.”

As she approached the door, it was opened from the outer side.  Her daughter met her half-way.  “Why are you here, mamma?” Stella asked.