Poor B was quite incapable of seeing anything of the sort at present. She was also deeply offended at any expression of the supposition that she would 'get over it'--as if it were an attack of measles. She told Mollie, who gave her actually more of the sympathy that she wanted than any of her own family, that she couldn't understand her father taking this light view of love. She would have thought he understood such things better. She would never love anybody but Rene, even if they did succeed in keeping them apart all their lives. And she knew he would love her in the same way. There was, however, no getting over the fact that Rene, when he had walked out of the Bank parlour, in offence, had walked out of his matrimonial intentions at the same time. The fashionable intelligence department announced his intention of spending the autumn at his Chateau in Picardy, and there was some reason to suppose that the announcement, not usual in the way it was given, might be taken as indicating to those who had thought of him as taking an English bride that his intentions in that respect had been relinquished. Grafton was rather surprised at having got rid of him so easily, and inclined to question himself as to the way in which he had done it. He told Worthing of all that had passed, and Worthing's uncomplicated opinion was that the fellow must have been an out and out wrong 'un. "I don't say that," Grafton said. "He was in love with B in the way that a fellow of that sort falls in love. Probably she'd have been very happy with him for a time. But she wouldn't have known how to hold him--wouldn't have known that she had to, poor child. I'm precious glad she's preserved from it. You know, Worthing, I couldn't have stopped it if he'd said--like an English fellow might have done--a fellow who had gone the pace--that all that was over for good; he wanted to make himself fit for a girl like B--something of that sort. Many a fellow has been made by loving a good innocent girl, and marrying. B could have done that for him, if he'd been the right sort--and wanted it." "I bet she could," said Worthing loyally. "It's hard luck she should have set her heart on a wrong 'un. They can't tell the difference, I suppose--girls, I mean. I don't know much about 'em, but I've learnt a good deal since I've got to know yours. It makes you feel different about all that sort of game. It's made me wish sometimes that I'd married myself, before I got too old for it. What I can't quite understand is its not affecting this fellow in the same sort of way. I don't understand his not making a struggle for her."