conscience. You're not sending me off simply for my health, or for a
little fishing. If I go to Hartman, the sport will not be the main item
on the programme; and that every one of us knows perfectly well. So I
don't move till I see my way straight."

Finding me thus unexpectedly firm, Jane looked at Mabel, and Mabel
looked at Jane, and there was a pause. You see, in this last deliverance
I had uttered my real mind--or part of it--and it naturally impressed
them.

My sister's share in the discussion had thus far been confined to the
few efforts at sarcasm duly credited to her above--let no one say that I
am unjust to Jane. She had been watching me pretty closely, but I hardly
think she saw anything she was not meant to see. Now she came to the
front, looking very serious--as we all did, in fact.

"Well, brother, some things are better understood than spoken--from our
point of view. But if you insist on having all in plain words, and
playing, as you call it, with cards on the table--"

"Just so," said I. "You use your feminine tools: I use mine, which are a
man's. If I have to do this piece of work, it must be on my own
conditions and after my own fashion, with the least risk of
misunderstanding."

"Robert, if this is affectation, you are a better actor than I thought.
But if you really know no more than we do--"

This was too much for Mabel. "Now, Jane, you go too far. Robert likes
his little joke, but he knows when to be serious. Why do you suspect him
so?"

Jane went on. "Of course it is possible he may be no deeper in Clarice's
confidence than we: she is very reticent. You mean, brother, that you
will do nothing till she authorizes you?"

"Well, as I said, this is her affair. For you, or me, or anybody else,
to meddle in it without her direction, or permission--unless in case of
obvious extremity--would seem, by all rules alike ethical and
prudential, a delicate and doubtful proceeding, to say the least."

"I suppose you are right there. Mabel, you may as well tell him. Robert,
don't think, from all this preamble, that it is of more importance than
it would otherwise seem. Perhaps we might as well have told you at once;
but we are only women, you know. Now at last we are using your
tools--the tools you always use with such manly consistency--candor and
open speech. Tell him, Mabel."

"Robert dear, Clarice told me to-day that you were looking badly; she
thought you needed a change. 'Is he not going off for