What she'd fain do for me she didn't tell me that day, but we took up the subject again. I remarked that I failed to see why we should assume that a girl like Linda--brilliant enough to make one of the greatest--would fall so very easily into my nephew's arms. Might I enquire if her mother had won a confession from her, if she had stammered out her secret? Mrs. Pallant made me, on this, the point that they had no need to tell each other such things--they hadn't lived together twenty years in such intimacy for nothing. To which I returned that I had guessed as much, but that there might be an exception for a great occasion like the present. If Linda had shown nothing it was a sign that for HER the occasion wasn't great; and I mentioned that Archie had spoken to me of the young lady only to remark casually and rather patronisingly, after his first encounter with her, that she was a regular little flower. (The little flower was nearly three years older than himself.) Apart from this he hadn't alluded to her and had taken up no allusion of mine. Mrs. Pallant informed me again--for which I was prepared--that I was quite too primitive; after which she said: "We needn't discuss the case if you don't wish to, but I happen to know--how I obtained my knowledge isn't important--that the moment Mr. Parker should propose to my daughter she'd gobble him down. Surely it's a detail worth mentioning to you." I sought to defer then to her judgement. "Very good. I'll sound him. I'll look into the matter tonight." "Don't, don't; you'll spoil everything!" She spoke as with some finer view. "Remove him quickly--that's the only thing." I didn't at all like the idea of removing him quickly; it seemed too summary, too extravagant, even if presented to him on specious grounds; and moreover, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish to change my scene. It was no part of my promise to my sister that, with my middle-aged habits, I should duck and dodge about Europe. So I temporised. "Should you really object to the boy so much as a son-in-law? After all he's a good fellow and a gentleman." "My poor friend, you're incredibly superficial!" she made answer with an assurance that struck me. The contempt in it so nettled me in fact that I exclaimed: "Possibly! But it seems odd that a lesson in consistency should come from YOU." I had no retort from her on this, rather to my surprise, and when she spoke again it was all quietly. "I think Linda and I had best withdraw. We've been here a month--it will have served our purpose."