always been fifty, and she had always, in his recollection of her,
smoked cigarettes, and travelled alone. Yet he had a certain
well-founded respect for her judgment, and for that fine luminous
common-sense of hers which had more than once shewn him his own
mistakes. On the rare occasions when he and she had differed he had
always realized, later, that she had been in the right. And she was
"gentlemanly" enough never once to have said: "I told you so!"

"What do you mean?" he asked again, for she was silent, her hands in
the pockets of her long coat, her sensible brown shoes sticking
straight out in front of her chair.

"If you really want to know, I'll tell you," she said, "but I hate to
interfere in other people's business. You see, I know how deeply she
has felt this, and of course I know you have too, so I wondered
whether you hadn't thought of some little plan for--for altering the
circumstances a little, so that everything will blow over and settle
down, so that when you and she come together again you'll be better
friends than ever."

"Come together again," he repeated, and the paper-knife was still
restless, "do you want me to let her go away? To London?"

Visions of Lizzie, in unseemly low-necked dresses surrounded by crowds
of young men--all possible Vernons--lent a sudden firmness to his
voice, a sudden alertness to his manner."

"No, certainly not," she answered the voice and the manner as much as
the words. "I shouldn't dream of such a thing. Then it hadn't occurred
to you?"