who replied to that. "We've had our time, Alfred," she
said. "We have to think of them now. We must not be selfish. They are
young and deeply in love, as you and I were once. We cannot separate them
because we are too lazy to move. And sixty? Yes, it is true that you are
sixty, but you are strong and your heart is still young. It is not as if
you were an old man."

Arthur and Brenda looked acutely self-conscious. Brenda blushed and seemed
inclined to giggle. Arthur's face was set in the stern lines of one who
hears his own banns called in church.

Banks leaned back in his chair and stared apprehensively at his wife.
"D'ye mean it, Nancy...?" he asked, and something in his delivery of the
phrase suggested that he had come down to a familiar test of decision. I
could only infer that whenever she had confessed to "meaning it" in the
past, her request had never so far been denied. I guessed, also, that
until now she had never been outrageous in her demands.

"What else can be done, dear?" she replied gently. "There is no choice
otherwise, except for them to separate."

He looked at the culprits with an expression of bewilderment. Why should
their little love affair be regarded as being of such tragic consequence,
he seemed to ask. What did they mean to him and his wife and daughter? Why
should they be considered worthy of what he could only picture as a
supreme, and almost intolerable sacrifice? These young people were always
having love affairs.

He thrust his inquiry bluntly at Brenda. "Are you in earnest, then, Miss
Brenda?" he asked. "D'you tell me that you want to marry him--that you're
set on it?"

"I mean to marry him whatever happens," Brenda replied in a low voice. She
was still abashed by this public discussion of her secrets. And it was
probably with some idea of diverting him from this intimate probing of her
desires that she continued more boldly. "We would go off together, without
your consent, you know, if we thought it would do any good. But it
wouldn't, would it? They'd probably be more spiteful still, if we did
that. Even if they could keep it dark, they'd never let you stay on here.
But do you really think it would be so awful for us all to go to Canada
together? It's a wrench, of course, but I expect it would be frightfully
jolly when we got there. Arthur says it is."

He turned from her with the least hint of contempt to look at his son.
"You've lost _your_ place a'ready, I suppose?" he said, try