"You know as well as I do, Mrs. Presty, that if your daughter is
forced to choose between us she will decide for her husband. You
have the night before you for consideration. I have no more to
say."

Among Mrs. Presty's merits, it is only just to reckon a capacity
for making up her mind rapidly, under stress of circumstances.
Before Linley had opened the door, on his way out, he was called
back.

"I am shocked to trouble you again," Mrs. Presty said, "but I
don't propose to interfere with my night's rest by thinking about
_you_. My position is perfectly clear to me, without wasting time
in consideration. When a man so completely forgets what is due to
the weaker sex as to threaten a woman, the woman has no
alternative but to submit. You are aware that I had arranged to
see my daughter to-morrow morning. I yield to brute force, sir.
Tell your wife that I shall not keep my appointment. Are you
satisfied?"

"Quite satisfied," Linley said--and left the room.

His mother-in-law looked after him with a familiar expression of
opinion, and a smile of supreme contempt.

"You fool!"

Only two words; and yet there seemed to be some hidden meaning in
them--relating perhaps to what might happen on the next
day--which gently tickled Mrs. Presty in the region assigned by