"I'm certain of nothing in this world except my feelings." "Because" (Eldred was slow but steady and indomitable in coming to his point), "because we don't want 'er 'eart broke." "_You_'re breaking it, you fool, every minute you stand there. Give me her address." In the end he gave it. Down-stairs, in the kitchen, by the ashes of the raked-out fire, he discussed the situation with his wife. "Did you tell him plain," said Mrs. Eldred, "that we'd 'ave no triflin'?" "I did." "Did you tell 'im that if 'e was not certain sure 'e wanted 'er, there was a young man who did?" Eldred said nothing to that question. He lit a pipe and began to smoke it. "Did you tell 'im," his wife persisted, "about Mr. Robinson?" "No, I didn't, old girl." "Well, if it 'ad bin me I should have said, 'Mr. Tanqueray, for all you've fam'ly on your side and that, we're not so awful anxious for Rose to marry you. We'd rather 'ave a young man without fam'ly, in a good line o' business and steady risin'. And we know of such as would give 'is 'ead to 'ave 'er.' That's wot I should 'ave said." "I dessay you would. I didn't say it, because I don't want 'im to 'ave 'er. That I don't. And if 'e was wantin' to cry off, and I was to have named Mr. Robinson, that'd 'ave bin the very thing to 'ave stirred 'im up to gettin' 'er. That's wot men _is_, missis, and women, too, all of 'em I've ever set eyes on. Dorgs wot'll leave the bone you give 'em, to fight for the bone wot another dorg 'e's got. Wot do you say to that, Mrs. Smoker, old girl?" Mrs. Smoker, the Aberdeen, pricked up her ears and smiled, with her eyes only, after the manner of her breed. "Anyhow," said Mrs. Eldred, "you let 'im see as 'ow we wasn't any way snatchin' at 'im?" "I did, missis." VI Mr. Eldred, groom and dog fancier, profoundly musing upon human nature and illuminated by his study of the lower animals, had hit upon a truth. Once let him know that another man desired to take Rose away from him and Mr. Tanqueray would be ten times more desirous to have her. What Mr. Eldred did not see was the effect upon Mr. Tanqueray of Rose's taking herself away, or he would not have connived at her departure. "Out o' sight, out o' mind," said Mr. Eldred, arguing again from his experience of the lower animals. But with Tanqueray, as with all creatures of powerful imagination, to be out of sight was to be perpetually in mind. All night, in this region of the mind, Rose's image did battle with Jane's image and overcame it.