“You mean—­”

“I mean just what I say.  We love one another, and I am willing to be his wife if he desires it—­and with your permission.  But—­”

He waited for her to go on.

“Another ’But’!” he said presently, though with increasing mildness.

“I do not think he will desire it after a while.  And ... and I do not know what I wish.  I am torn in two.”

“But you are willing?”

“I pray for it every night,” she cried piteously.  “And every morning I pray that it may not be so.”

She was staring at him as if in agony, utterly unlike what he had looked for in her.  He was completely bewildered.

“I do not understand one word—­”

Then she threw herself at his knees and seized his hands; her face was all torn with pain.

“And I cannot explain one word....  Father, I am in misery.  You must pray for me and have patience with me....  I must wait ...  I must wait and see what God wishes.”

“Now, now....”

“Father, you will trust me, will you not?”

“Listen to me.  You must tell me thus.  Do you love this boy?”

“Yes, yes.”

“And you have told him so?  He asked you, I mean?”

“Yes.”

He put her hands firmly from his knee.

“Then you must marry him, if matters can be arranged.  It is what I should wish.  But I do not know—­”

“Father, you do not understand—­you do not understand.  I tell you I am willing enough, if he wishes it ... if he wishes it.”

Again she seized his hands and held them.  And again bewilderment came down on him like a cloud.

“Father! you must trust me.  I am willing to do everything that I ought.”  (She was speaking firmly and confidently now.) “If he wishes to marry me, I will marry him.  I love him dearly....  But you must say nothing to him, not one word.  My mother agrees with this.  She would have told you herself; but I said that I would—­that I must be brave....  I must learn to be brave....  I can tell you no more.”

He lifted her hands and stood up.

“I see that I understand nothing that you say after all,” he said with a fine fatherly dignity.  “I must talk with your mother.”

II

He found his wife half an hour later in the ladies’ parlour, which he entered with an air as of nothing to say.  With the same air of disengagement he made sure that Marjorie was nowhere in the room, and presently sat down.

Mrs. Manners was well past her prime.  She was over forty years old and looked over fifty, though she retained the air of distinction which Marjorie had derived from her; but her looks belied her, and she had not one tithe of the subtlety and keenness of her daughter.  She was, in fact, more suited to be wife to her husband than mother to her daughter.

“You have come about the maid,” she said instantly, with disconcerting penetration and frankness.  “Well, I know no more than you.  She will tell me nothing but what she has told you.  She has some fiddle-faddle in her head, as maids will, but she will have her way with us, I suppose.”