"That's two!" she said. "Good-bye, Annette!" "Good-bye. Good-bye." She mounted into the cab again, and its iron wheels went clattering over the cobble-stones. "I wonder," said Francis, turning homeward, "I wonder if he heard a word of all that I said to him." "Did you say much?" asked Serge. "I struck him." Serge laughed. "It was most extraordinary. An uncontrollable impulse. It needed some explanation, for I meant only to assure him that, in spite of his burglarious entry into it, I accepted him as a member of my family. Do you approve, Serge?" "I believe in Annette. I would rather be Annette than Gertrude or Mary or Minna." "So would I. I wonder why?" "You won't agree with me, but I detest all this repression of emotion in the name of virtue. It is nothing but cowardice. You can't destroy emotion by suppressing it. It only goes bad. . . . I'm only thankful to see Annette out of your house and away fighting for her own hand." "Theoretically I cannot applaud Annette, but, frankly, I must confess that I am excited and curiously uplifted by her open defiance of . . ." "My dear father, you are a sentimentalist yearning over love's young dream. Annette knew that--instinctively. She knew that you would expect her to live on love's young dream indefinitely, until the bloom was gone from her youth and the edge from her appetite. She knew that she could not trust you. Still less my mother. She took the law into her own hands, and I admire her for it." Francis walked on for some moments in silence. At the gate he said: "I have reason to respect your opinions, Serge, but I heartily dislike them. . . . Will you come and help me in the greenhouse? I should be obliged if you will stay with me to-night until your mother is in bed and asleep. It will be so bad for her to talk." * * * Mary saw her mother to bed and then came to say good-night to her father. She wore an expression of intense gloom as she pecked at his cheek. She patted his shoulder as though to tell him to be a little man and bear it. Minna came. "I shall be the next, pa." "Not another elopement, my dear." "No, pa. . . I want to send a piece of my wedding-cake to Annette. Will you give me away, Serge?" "With all my heart." Minna kissed her father and pulled his beard as she used to do when she was a little girl. At the door of the greenhouse she turned: "I shall have Gertrude and Mary for my bridesmaids. Won't they be pleased? . . ." "Go to bed," said Francis. "We gave Ma some hot gin and water to make her sleep," said Minna, and she winked at Serge. She went away light-heartedly, humming the Dead March in Saul. Gertrude did not appear. * * * At half-past twelve Serge went up to his mother's room, peeped in, saw her sleeping, gently closed the door, and tip-toed away. He told his father. "Thank God, for that," said Francis. "I was afraid she . . ."