"You mean that it doesn't prevent them leaving them afterwards. Well, perhaps not always. But surely, Mr. Grafton, you do ask too much, don't you? If he loves her and she loves him, it isn't reasonable to keep them apart, is it?" He paused for a moment before asking: "How am I keeping them apart?" "Would you allow them to come together again?" she asked in her turn. He stirred uneasily in his chair. The thought of his little B once more living with him moved him. "I think it would be better if they didn't," he said. "But if--after a time----" "Oh, I don't mean now at once," she said. "Indeed that would be impossible, for I have persuaded him to go to America. He is to start very shortly, and won't be in England again before he goes." Grafton felt a considerable sense of relief at this statement. "How long is he to be away?" he asked. "Oh, I hope for the winter, if he amuses himself. But he may want to hunt in England." "If you told him that he might see her again wouldn't he want to come back? Perhaps he wouldn't want to go. I think I should stipulate, anyhow, that he did go--or at least that he shouldn't see her again, or write to her, say for six months. I think, perhaps, I haven't the right to reject him altogether, on the ground of my objections. But I do feel them strongly. It will be a grief to me if my daughter makes this marriage. I have a right, I think, to make sure that her feeling for him is at least strong enough to stand six months of being parted. If she is the same at the end of it, then perhaps I couldn't hold out. I think the same test might apply to him. It would relieve my fears somewhat for the future, if he still wants to marry her at the end of that time." "Perhaps he won't, Mr. Grafton," she said, with a slight change of manner. "You may have asked yourself why I should have pleaded with you, as I have done, for permission for my son to pay addresses to your daughter. Though I should be proud of her, and should love her too, it would not be a brilliant match for my son. I might prefer another sort of match for him. As you have said, Americans make good wives for French husbands--perhaps better than English girls. They do not demand so much." He gathered that she was feeling uneasy at being in the position of asking for what she would have preferred to concede as a favour, and was rather amused at it. "I should have thought it would have suited you much better," he said, with a smile. "Why is it that you should not be satisfied with the unreasonable objections of an Englishman who ought to be pleased at the idea of his daughter marrying your son?"