In any case, he had not set about it yet. As he went through the hall towards his room, accompanied by the Doctor, "I take it that it's hardly necessary, Doctor," he said, "to formally ask your consent." The Doctor waited until they had reached the room, and the door was closed behind them. "I think it _is_ necessary, Mr. Winthrop," he answered, gravely. "Very well, then. I ask it," said the younger man. And his voice, as he spoke, had a pleasant sound. The Doctor had liked Evert Winthrop. There were two or three things which he should have preferred to see changed; still, faults and all, he had liked him. And he liked his present demand (though by no means the manner of it); the Northerner was taking the proper course, he had taken it promptly. Nevertheless the idea was impossible, perfectly impossible, that Garda, the child whom they all loved, the daughter of Edgar Thorne and all the Dueros, could be carried off by this stranger without any trouble to himself, at an hour's notice! And that he, Reginald Kirby, should be asked to give his consent to it in that light way! Give his consent? Never! The Doctor's feelings were conflicting. And growing more so. He looked at Winthrop, and thought of twenty things; at one instant he felt a strong desire to knock him down; the next, he was grateful. He said to himself, almost with tears, that at least it should not be so easy, there should be obstacles, and plenty, of them; if there was no one else to raise them, he, Reginald Kirby, would raise them. He found it difficult to know what he really did think with any clearness. But Winthrop was waiting, he must say something. "Edgarda is very young," he began, in rather a choked voice. "I know it. I should, of course, wait until she was older--at least eighteen." "Two years," said the Doctor, mechanically. "Yes, two years." "And in the mean time?" "In the mean time we should, I hope, go on much as we are going now; she is in Mrs. Harold's charge, you know." The southerner thought that this also was spoken much too lightly. "Would your intention be to--to educate her further?" he asked, bringing out the question with an effort. It seemed to him that he never could consent to that, to have their child carried off, while still so young and impressible, and subjected to the radical modern processes that passed as education for girls at the high-pressure North. "No," Winthrop answered, divining the Doctor's thought, and smiling over it, "I have no intentions of that kind, how could I have? If Garda should choose to study for a while, that would be her own affair, and Mrs. Harold's. She will be entirely free." "Do you mean that you will exercise no authority?" "None whatever." "Then you do not consider it an engagement?" said the Doctor, drawing himself up belligerently. "As much of an engagement as this: she has said that she would be my wife at the end of two years, if, at the end of two years, she should find herself in the same mind."