plied Constantia. "Mamma will be
down presently. . . . There has been something of a scene, and she is
upset. You saw Mr. Farrell go away, just now? You must have passed
him, almost at the door."

"I did," said I, "though I don't know if he recognised me.
Child, what is the matter?"

"Child?" echoed Constantia. "It does me good to be called that, for
that's exactly how I am feeling. . . . He had no right--no right--"
and there she broke off.

"Do you mean," said I, "that he put that announcement in the _Times_
having no _right_ to do it?"

"I dare say," moaned Constantia, waving her arms feebly,
pathetically, "he understood more than I meant him to."

"Let us be practical, please," said I, becoming extremely stern.
"Have you, or have you not, engaged yourself to marry Farrell?"

"Certainly I have not," she answered with vivacity. "He asked me,
and I--well, I played for time."

I couldn't repress a small groan at this: or, rather, it was half a
groan and half a sigh of relief. "Has he spoken to your mother?"

"No."

"Does your mother know about it?"

"Yes. I told her."

"Does she approve of this announcement in the papers? Has she
sanctioned it?"

"Of course she does not--of course she has not. . . . Roddy, sit down
and don't ask so many questions all of a heap. Sit down and light
your pipe, and pass me a cigarette. Furnilove will bring in some
whisky for you by and by."

"Thank you, Constantia; but I don't feel like staying. I've always
maintained--oh, damnation!" I broke off.

"What have you always maintained, Roddy? Sit down and tell it.
Are you not here because I sent for you? And didn't I send for you
because I am in trouble? We are in a tangle, I tell you, and I'm
asking you, on my knees, to untwist it. So light your pipe and,
before we begin, tell me--What is it you have always maintained?"

"I have always maintained," I answered slowly, even more stern than
before, "that no woman can be safely trusted to know a cad from a
gentleman. If the cad can flourish a trifle of worldly success in
front of her, or if he's a mere adventurer and flashes himself on her
boldly enough, _or_, if she has persuaded herself to pity him, she's
just fascinated, and you can't trust her judgment ten yards.
There! . . . I've burnt my boats."

Constantia sat for some while pondering this, breathing out the smoke
of her cigarette, gazing into the fire under the shade of a
handscreen.

"I'll tell you