Now it is almost easier to take the roof off an hotel and to look down unchecked into its various rooms than it is to unveil and take stock of the contents of a woman's mind with its strata upon strata of confusing elements. So, for what Mrs. Cartwright was feeling, we will take her word as she told herself that she felt relieved and settled about the _affaire_ Jack Awdas. She was glad it was all over. The boy had imagined himself in love with her. A great mercy that he had not, after the manner of some men, allowed himself to dangle and sigh and create an atmosphere in which one did not quite know where one was. He had voiced his absurd and youthful passion at once. He had actually proposed to her--to her who might be his mother. So much the better, as it happened; because _now_ she had been able to say "No" definitely. It had all been definitely settled and tidied up in that wood on the way from the oyster park. Now, it was finished. Now, it was quite safe again. It would be silly to avoid the boy since both of them knew where they were. Besides, he had had that horrible nightmare. He would have to go flying again. Not even yet were his jangled nerves quite healed, poor child! He ought, he really ought to have some one to look after him, to give a thought to his welfare now and again ... some nice, sensible woman.... Mrs. Cartwright, in thus describing herself to herself, did not for one moment admit that if the boy had already proposed to her in the sunlight, he simply couldn't help himself in the moonlight. So she answered him lightly and conventionally; she fell into step beside him. They walked. She was too old for him, as she'd told him. A generation too old! But she was still not too old to walk with him, to listen to him. And ... When is a woman too old to wish she were young enough? It was brusquely enough that Jack Awdas broke into speech. "I say," he began, "how old should I have to be, then, before you'd want to marry me?" She had been looking away across the _Baissin_ with its twinkling lights, its guardian jewel flashing from white to red. She turned abruptly, dismayed, as one is dismayed when some trouble, dimly foreseen (and defied) descends upon one's head. Oh dear.... Oh dear.... It was not quite at an end then? She had not yet definitely put a stop to this very young man's folly? "Oh," she returned. "Oh, but we had agreed, I think, not to talk about ... _that_, any more...." "Had we?" he retorted. "You had 'agreed,' perhaps. I hadn't." "But----Please! There must be no more of it." "What?" He threw up his head. "We must have it out, you know. We are going to." "No, no----" "Yes, I say. Yes. As I was saying----How old should I have to be before you'd want to marry me?" Mrs. Cartwright gave a little hopeless sort of laugh to herself as she threw upon him that quick glance that seemed to be not looking.