I paid Mrs. Nettlepoint a morning visit after luncheon and another in the evening, before she 'turned in.' That same day, in the evening, she said to me suddenly, 'Do you know what I have done? I have asked Jasper.' 'Asked him what?' 'Why, if _she_ asked him, you know.' 'I don't understand.' 'You do perfectly. If that girl really asked him--on the balcony--to sail with us.' 'My dear friend, do you suppose that if she did he would tell you?' 'That's just what he says. But he says she didn't.' 'And do you consider the statement valuable?' I asked, laughing out. 'You had better ask Miss Gracie herself.' Mrs. Nettlepoint stared. 'I couldn't do that.' 'Incomparable friend, I am only joking. What does it signify now?' 'I thought you thought everything signified. You were so full of signification!' 'Yes, but we are farther out now, and somehow in mid-ocean everything becomes absolute.' 'What else _can_ he do with decency?' Mrs. Nettlepoint went on. 'If, as my son, he were never to speak to her it would be very rude and you would think that stranger still. Then _you_ would do what he does, and where would be the difference?' 'How do you know what he does? I haven't mentioned him for twenty-four hours.' 'Why, she told me herself: she came in this afternoon.' 'What an odd thing to tell you!' I exclaimed. 'Not as she says it. She says he's full of attention, perfectly devoted--looks after her all the while. She seems to want me to know it, so that I may commend him for it.' 'That's charming; it shows her good conscience.' 'Yes, or her great cleverness.' Something in the tone in which Mrs. Nettlepoint said this caused me to exclaim in real surprise, 'Why, what do you suppose she has in her mind?' 'To get hold of him, to make him go so far that he can't retreat, to marry him, perhaps.' 'To marry him? And what will she do with Mr. Porterfield?' 'She'll ask me just to explain to him--or perhaps you.' 'Yes, as an old friend!' I replied, laughing. But I asked more seriously, 'Do you see Jasper caught like that?' 'Well, he's only a boy--he's younger at least than she.' 'Precisely; she regards him as a child.' 'As a child?' 'She remarked to me herself to-day that he is so much younger.' Mrs. Nettlepoint stared. 'Does she talk of it with you? That shows she has a plan, that she has thought it over!'