Winn preferred to consider this question in the light of rhetoric and made no reply. He wasn't going to give Estelle away by saying there was nothing the matter with her, and on the other hand a lie would have been pounced upon and torn to pieces. "Marriage don't seem to have agreed with either of you particularly well," observed Lady Staines with a grim smile. "We haven't got your constitution," replied her son. "If either you or Father had married any one else--they'd have been dead within six months." "Humph!" said his mother. "That only shows our sound judgment; we took what we could stomach! It's her look-out of course, but I suppose she knows she's running you into the Divorce Court, letting you go out there by yourself? All those snow places bristle with grass widows and girls who have outstayed their market and have to get a hustle on! Sending a man out there alone is like driving a new-born lamb into a pack of wolves!" Lady Staines with her eye on the heavily built and rather leathery lamb beside her gave a sardonic chuckle. Winn ignored her illustration. "You needn't be afraid," he replied. "I'm done with women; they tempt me about as much as stale sponge cakes." "Ah!" said his mother, "I've heard that tale before. A man who says he's done with women simply means one of them's done with him. Besides, you're to be an invalid, I understand! An invalid man is as exposed to women as a young chicken to rats. You won't stand a ghost of a chance. Look at your father, if I left him alone when he was having an attack of gout with a gray-haired matron of a reformatory, he'd be on his knees to her before I could get back." "You can take it from me," said Winn, "that even if I _should_ need such a thing as a petticoat, I'd try a kind that won't affect marriage. I'll never look at another good woman again--the other sort will do for me if I can't stick it without." "Don't racket too much," said Lady Staines, planting her last bulb with scientific skill. "They say keeping women's very expensive up there--on account of the Russian Princes." "By the by," said Winn, "thanks for the money. Had any difficulty in extracting it?" "Not much," said Lady Staines, withdrawing to the lawn. "Charles got rather in the way." "Silly ass," observed Winn. "Didn't want me to have it, I suppose?" "No, he did want you to have it," replied Lady Staines, "but he needn't have been such a fool as to have said so. It nearly upset everything. His idea was, you see, that if his father gave you something--he and James would have to be bought off. So they were in the end, but they'd have had more if he'd played his hand better." Winn laughed. "Jolly to be home again," he remarked. "Dinner as usual?"