"I don't know what you mean by pinning you down," she said; "but it is, of course, perfectly true that I wanted you to get better acquainted with him. I am sure, Maud, you are a very lucky girl." The lucky girl put up her parasol; her face was absolutely immobile except for the least curl at the corner of her mouth, which might have expressed almost anything--fatigue, indifference, anything. "Then he has made formal proposals?" she asked. "His mother wrote to me asking if I sanctioned his doing so." "You said yes, I suppose?" "Naturally I should not forbid it, considering, as I do, that it is an admirable match for you. The young man is amiable, quite without vices I should think (which, after all, is _most_ important, as so many marriages are wrecked that way). He is shrewd and clever, quite his father's son, and he is immensely wealthy." "Those are all very good qualities," said Maud. "My dear, of course they are. In bare justice to myself, I must say that, when I recommend a thing, I do so not on vague grounds, but on well-defined and cogent reasoning. Or perhaps you would prefer a husband who is a sot, a fool, and a pauper? You could easily find one of those without any great trouble." Maud laughed; she was one of those people whom temper in others leaves perfectly undisturbed. Then she laid her hand on her mother's. "Dearest mother," she said, "I really did not mean to be tiresome. Was I? You were saying that he was well-conducted, clever and wealthy." "I should have thought that was a good deal to say for any one," said her mother, not yet quite calm. "There are heaps of perfectly well-conducted people in the world who are fools, heaps of very wealthy people who are vicious, and plenty, as I said, who have neither wits, morals, nor money. Which sort do you want? Or do you look forward to spinsterhood in a cottage with a canary? Almost all your father's fortune will go to Otho and Reginald. You will be quite poor." "I don't love Anthony Maxwell," said Maud, with a deplorable relapse into directness. "Oh, my dear, have you been reading some sentimental novel? You seem to think that every girl meets the man eternally pre-destined for her, with clear-cut features and a coiffure like a hair-dresser's. That sort of romantic stuff is extinct. It never existed in fact, and it is rapidly disappearing in fiction. If it were true, the world would have come to an end long ago, for we should all have caught such frightful colds by reading Dante and Shakespeare on violet-covered banks that we should have died without children." * * * * * Mrs. Brereton settled herself on the cushions of the carriage, feeling much more comfortable. If only Maud would continue to argue the question, she felt sure of her ground.