She had not spoken to Bob till Hubert Wray had surrendered all he had to tell. He had done this through a process of "pumping" of which he himself had hardly been aware. Having ascertained that his New England connections were unexceptional, Junia had been attentive to him through the winter, making him feel that Collingham Lodge was a second home. What he didn’t tell to her he told to Edith, and what Edith knew the mother had no great difficulty in finding out. Thus when, on the previous Saturday, Bob was about to leave for a party on Long Island, they had had the plain talk which could no longer be deferred. They had had it after lunch, seated on a bench overlooking the tennis court. They had come out ostensibly to talk over the sacrifice of the pink-and-white hawthorn in the shade of which they sat in favor of extending the court so that Bob and Edith could both have parties simultaneously. While the new court would be an improvement, they would regret the celestial flowering of the hawthorn whenever, as at present, it was May. "Not that it would make so very much difference to your father and me," Junia began, in a quavering tone, "if things we’re afraid of were to happen." So the subject was opened up. Bob could only ask, "What things?" and his mother could only tell him. "It’s quite true, old lady," he confessed. "You might as well know it first as last." Junia had not brought up her children without having learned that, while Edith could be controlled, Bob could only be managed. With Edith, she could say, "I forbid," with Bob, it had to be, "I suffer." "Of course, dear," she said now, "I’m your mother, and whatever you do I shall try to accept. It will be hard, naturally—it’s hard already—but you can count on me." He took her hand and squeezed it. "Thanks, old lady." "Of course I can’t answer for your father. You know for yourself how stern and unyielding he is." "Oh, I’m not so sure about that. It’s always seemed to me that he’d give in to a lot of things, if you’d only let him." This perspicacity being dangerous, she glided to another aspect of her theme. "What I don’t understand is why, if you’ve been in love with her for seven or eight months, and you mean to marry her, you haven’t done it already." He took two or three puffs at his cigarette before tossing off: "I’d do it like a shot, if she would." "And she won’t?" "Not yet." "And you think she will?" "I’m sure she will." "What makes you so certain?" "Nothing. I just know." Having had her fears verified, Junia had no object in pushing the inquiry further. Her duty in life was to take events as they touched her family and mold them for the best. When she called it "the best" she meant it as the best. She was not a worldly woman with mere fashionable ends in view. Eager for the good of her children, she was conscientious in pursuit of the things she truly believed to be worthiest.