“The law will argue any thing, with any body who will pay the law for the use of its brains and its time. Let that view of the matter alone now. Delamayn can set the case going, if he likes, without applying to any lawyer to help him. He has only to cause a report to reach Blanche’s ears which publicly asserts that she is not your lawful wife. With her temper, do you suppose she would leave us a minute’s peace till the matter was cleared up? Or take it the other way. Comfort yourself, if you will, with the idea that this affair will trouble nobody in the present. How are we to know it may not turn up in the future under circumstances which may place the legitimacy of your children in doubt? We have a man to deal with who sticks at nothing. We have a state of the law which can only be described as one scandalous uncertainty from beginning to end. And we have two people (Bishopriggs and Mrs. Inchbare) who can, and will, speak to what took place between you and Anne Silvester at the inn. For Blanche’s sake, and for the sake of your unborn children, we must face this matter on the spot--and settle it at once and forever. The question before us now is this. Shall we open the proceedings by communicating with Miss Silvester or not?” At that important point in the conversation they were interrupted by the reappearance of Blanche. Had she, by any accident, heard what they had been saying? No; it was the old story of most interruptions. Idleness that considers nothing, had come to look at Industry that bears every thing. It is a law of nature, apparently, that the people in this world who have nothing to do can not support the sight of an uninterrupted occupation in the hands of their neighbors. Blanche produced a new specimen from Arnold’s collection of hats. “I have been thinking about it in the garden,” she said, quite seriously. “Here is the brown one with the high crown. You look better in this than in the white one with the low crown. I have come to change them, that’s all.” She changed the hats with Arnold, and went on, without the faintest suspicion that she was in the way. “Wear the brown one when you come out--and come soon, dear. I won’t stay an instant longer, uncle--I wouldn’t interrupt you for the world.” She kissed her hand to Sir Patrick, and smiled at her husband, and went out. “What were we saying?” asked Arnold. “It’s awkward to be interrupted in this way, isn’t it?” “If I know any thing of female human nature,” returned Sir Patrick, composedly, “your wife will be in and out of the room, in that way, the whole morning. I give her ten minutes, Arnold, before she changes her mind again on the serious and weighty subject of the white hat and the brown. These little interruptions--otherwise quite charming--raised a doubt in my mind. Wouldn’t it be wise (I ask myself), if we made a virtue of necessity, and took Blanche into the conversation? What do you say to calling her back and telling her the truth?”