"I'm sure I am." There came a long silence between them. Mrs. Tropenell could see her son in outline, as it were, his well-shaped head, and long, lean, finely proportioned body. He was sitting at the further end of the bench, and he was now staring right before him. She found it easier--far easier--to speak of Godfrey than of Laura. And so, musingly, she went on: "Looking back a dozen years, I can think of several young women whom Godfrey would have done well to consider----" "I can certainly think of one, mother," he said, and in the darkness there came a bitter little smile over his face. "You mean Katty Winslow? Yes--I think you're right, my dear. When Godfrey turned from Katty to Laura, he made a terrible mistake. Katty, in the old days, had very much the same ambitions, and the same social aspirations, as himself. She was really fond of him too! She would have become--what's the odious word?--'smart.' And Godfrey would have been proud of her. By now he would have stood for Parliament, and then, in due course, would have come a baronetcy. Yes, if the gods had been kind, Godfrey Pavely would have married poor little Katty--he didn't behave over well to her, you know!" "It seems to me that Mrs. Winslow has made quite a good thing of her life, mother." "Do you really think that, Oliver?" "Yes, I do. She managed very cleverly, so I'm told, to get rid of that worthless husband of hers, and now she's got that pretty little house, and that charming little garden, and as much of Godfrey as she seems to want." He spoke with a kind of hard indifference. "Katty's not the sort of woman to be really satisfied with a pretty little house, a charming little garden, and a platonic share in another woman's husband." "Then she'll marry again. People seem to think her very attractive." There was a long pause. "Mother?" "Yes, my dearest." "To return to Laura--what should have been _her_ fate had the gods been kind?" She left his question without an answer so dangerously long as to create a strange feeling of excitement and strain between them. Then, reluctantly, she answered it. "Laura might have been happiest in not marrying at all, and in any case she should have married late. As to what kind of man would have made her happy, of course I have a theory." "What is your theory?" He leant towards her, breathing rather quickly. "I think," she said hesitatingly, "that Laura might have been happy with a man of the world, older than herself, who would have regarded his wife as a rare and beautiful possession. Such a man would have understood the measure of what she was willing and able to give--and to withhold. I can also imagine Laura married to a young idealist, the kind of man whose attitude to his wife is one of worship, whose demands, if indeed they can be called demands, are few, infrequent----"