“Oh, no. Oh, certainly not. I am very much obliged.” Mr. Parker stopped walking, made some swallowing movements in his throat, and then spoke impressively but urbanely. “There are very few people for whose judgment I have so much respect as for yours, Miss Verinder. The position and the influence that you have rightly secured among all who have the honour of your acquaintance is, if I may say so, principally due to the very high standard of, ah, manners as well as morals that you rightly stand out for. I know that you do not tolerate subversive ideas. Otherwise, frankly, I could not have listened to you with the patience that I hope I have shown. But I cannot, I will not agree that it is my duty to allow a child of mine to make a fool of herself if I can prevent it. And what staggers me, what beats me altogether”--and he looked from Miss Verinder to his wife, with a suddenly helpless, baffled expression--“what utterly amazes me is the _change_ in Mildred. I ask myself what has happened to her. Is she bewitched? It is not _like_ her to oppose any headstrong wish of hers to the considered opinion of those older and presumably wiser. Up till now she has seemed to lean on one’s advice, to crave for it. It is not as if she had ever been a disobedient girl. Why, good gracious, no. We used to say from the very beginning, even when she was quite a tiny little thing, ‘There is never any trouble with Mildred.’ One just told her what to do, and she seemed to take a positive pleasure in doing it. Is not that so?” Miss Verinder said no more then; but before many days had passed she returned to the attack. Endeavouring to accustom Mr. Parker’s mind to the idea, she extracted a statement of his objections to Alwyn as a possible son-in-law. Mr. Parker said emphatically that Alwyn was not good enough for Mildred, and when gently invited to consider if in saying this he did not mean that Alwyn was not good enough for him, Mr. Parker, he owned that, beyond his distaste for the young man’s profession--which he did not admit really to be a profession--Alwyn was a nobody in it. He had not “arrived.” “Oh, but he _will_ arrive,” said Miss Verinder. “You know, he had now been put on to play one of the principal parts in that delightful comedy _Five Old Men and a Dog_. I went to see it, and I was much struck by his performance. I really think, Mr. Parker, that you and Mrs. Parker ought to go yourselves.” “We shall do nothing of the sort,” said Mr. Parker. Then, very soon after this, Miss Verinder attacked in real earnest. She said that the result of arbitrarily closing the house doors against Mr. Beckett had been that these young people met each other in a furtive undignified fashion outside the doors; that they had promised Miss Verinder to discontinue the practice, and that they had discontinued it; but that she thought they would certainly withdraw the promise unless Mr. Parker adopted a more conciliatory attitude towards them.