Young Mr. Daunt gave his sister a long, searching, and sophisticated stare. "I think I have a little the advantage of you, Dorrie. I met to-day this Mr. Stewart Morrison you're speaking of!" "I haven't spoken of him! I haven't mentioned his name!" "Oh, didn't you?" purred the brother. "Then I must have anticipated what you were going to say, or else I read your mind for the name--and that only shows that the Daunt family's members are thoroughly _en rapport_, to use dad's favorite phrase when he's showing the strawberry mark on ideas and making the other fellow adopt 'em as his own children. And I have heard how Lana and Morrison have been twice engaged and twice estranged. So, how about her New England conscience in the matter of a promise in love?" "As I understand it, the New England conscience grows up with the possessor and comes of age and asserts itself. You can't expect an infant or juvenile conscience to boss and control like a grown-up conscience. Coventry, what kind of a man is Morrison?" "A big, opinionated ramrod of a Scotchman who'd drive any girl to break her engagement a dozen times if she had promised as often as that." Mrs. Stanton relaxed in her chair and sighed with relief. "Oh, from what she said about him--But no matter! I think you do know men very well, Cov! I'll do no more worrying where he's concerned. Forgive me for advising you so emphatically." "He'd boss any girl into breaking her engagement," continued Coventry, with conviction. "Any dreaming, wondering, restless girl, curious to find out for herself and afraid of restraint." "I know the type. Impossible as husbands," averred Mrs. Stanton, a caustic and unwearying counselor of sex independence. "But there are some girls who grow up into real women, though you probably have hard work to believe that," said her brother, equally caustic in stating his opinions, "and they are waiting for the right man to come along and take sole possession of them, body and soul and affairs--when they are women! Then it isn't bossing any more! It's love, glorified! Letting 'em have their own way would seem like neglect and indifference, and their hearts would be broken. They eat it up, sis, eat it up, that kind of love!" His sister leaped from her chair. "How anybody with an ounce of brains can take stock in this caveman nonsense is more than I can understand!" "It has nothing to do with brains, sis! It's in here!" He tapped his finger on his breast. "It was put in when the first heart started beating." "But you listen to reason! No woman wants a--"