"Please, please," put in Mr. Porson, turning pink under pressure of some
painful recollection. "If you have finished sparring with your uncle,
isn't there any tea, Mary?"

"I believe so," she said, relapsing into a state of bland indifference.
"I'll go and see. If I don't come back, you'll know it is there," and
Mary passed through the door with that indolent, graceful walk which no
one could mistake who once had seen her.

Both her father and her uncle looked after her with admiration. Mr.
Porson admired her because the man or woman who dared to meet that
domestic tyrant his brother-in-law in single combat, and could issue
unconquered from the doubtful fray, was indeed worthy to be honoured.
Colonel Monk for his part hastened to do homage to a very pretty and
charming young lady, one, moreover, who was not in the least afraid of
him.

Mary had gone, and the air from the offending window, which was so
constructed as to let in a maximum of draught, banged the door behind
her. The two men looked at each other. A thought was in the mind of
each; but the Colonel, trained by long experience, and wise in his
generation, waited for Mr. Porson to speak. Many and many a time in the
after days did he find reason to congratulate himself upon this superb
reticence--for there are occasions when discretion can amount almost to
the height of genius. Under their relative circumstances, if it had
been he who first suggested this alliance, he and his family must have
remained at the gravest disadvantage, and as for stipulations, well, he
could have made none. But as it chanced it was from poor Porson's lips
that the suggestion came.

Mr. Porson cleared this throat--once, twice, thrice. At the third rasp,
the Colonel became very attentive. He remembered that his brother-in-law
had done exactly the same thing at the very apex of a long-departed
crisis; indeed, just before he offered spontaneously to take over the
mortgages on the Abbey estate.

"You were talking, Colonel," he began, "when Mary came in," and he
paused.

"I daresay," replied the Colonel indifferently, fixing a contemptuous
glance upon some stone mullions of atrocious design.

"About Morris marrying?"

"Oh, yes, so I was! Well?"

"Well--she seems to like him. I know she does indeed. She never talks of
any other young man."

"She? Who?"

"My daughter, Mary; and--so--why shouldn't they--you know?"

"Really, John, I must ask you to be a little more explicit.