f conference. She had a natural dread of such meetings, at
which it seemed to her that the only thing which she must not do was the
only thing that she knew how to do, namely, to speak her mind. So she at
once decided to withdraw.

"Your man insisted on my coming in, Mrs. Farron," she said. "I came to
ask about Mr. Farron; but I see you are in the midst of a family
discussion, and so I won't--"

Everybody separately cried out to her to stay as she began to retreat to
the door, and no one more firmly than Adelaide, who thought it as
careless as Mr. Lanley thought it creditable that a mother would be
willing to go away and leave the discussion of her son's life to others.
Adelaide saw an opportunity of killing two birds.

"You are just the person for whom I have been longing, Mrs. Wayne," she
said. "Now you have come, we can settle the whole question."

"And just what is the question?" asked Mrs. Wayne. She sat down,
looking distressed and rather guilty. She knew they were going to ask
her what she knew about all the things that had been going on, and a
hasty examination of her consciousness showed her that she knew
everything, though she had avoided Pete's full confidence. She knew
simply by knowing that any two young people who loved each other would
rather marry than separate for a year. But she was aware that this
deduction, so inevitable to her, was exactly the one which would be
denied by the others. So she sat, with a nervously pleasant smile on
her usually untroubled face, and waited for Adelaide to speak. She did
not have long to wait.

"You did not know, I am sure, Mrs. Wayne, that your son intended to run
away with my daughter?"

All four of them stared at her, making her feel more and more guilty; and
at last Lanley, unable to bear it, asked:

"Did you know that, Mrs. Wayne?"

"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Wayne. "Yes. I knew it was possible; so did you.
Pete didn't tell me about it, though."

"But I did tell Mrs. Farron," said Pete.

Adelaide protested at once.

"You told me?" Then she remembered that a cloud had obscured the end of
their last interview, but she did not withdraw her protest.

"You know, Mrs. Farron, you have a bad habit of not listening to what is
said to you," Wayne answered firmly.

This sort of impersonal criticism was to Adelaide the greatest
impertinence, and she showed her annoyance.

"In spite of the disabilities of age, Mr. Wayne," she said, "I find I
usually can get a simpl