"Well, you ought to be able to see it as I do. You know what Caroline is. She wouldn't give her love, and take it away again when the sort of objections that you feel towards Maurice are pointed out to her. She's faced all that, and it doesn't matter to her. She sees a lot more in him than you can, or than I've been able to; though I tell you that there _is_ a lot in him, and _I'm_ quite ready to accept him. So you--and Dick--ought to make the effort too." They were standing together before the fire, her arm still in his. Her face was graver, as she said: "Caroline is different to me. That's quite true." "I haven't meant anything I've said to reflect on you." "I know, darling. But you wouldn't treat it like that if it were me, all the same. Well, of course we shall be as nice about it as ever we can, and if he does turn into something that makes him more equal to Caroline it will be all the easier. It's quite beyond me to think of him as her equal now, Dad, so you mustn't expect me to do it." "Oh, well, don't show it; that's all I ask," he said. The view taken of the affair by Lady Grafton, whom he saw in the course of the week, was that it was his own fault for burying Caroline in the country. If he hadn't wanted her there whenever he went down to Abington she would have gone about more and met the right sort of men. "Oh, my dear Mary!" he said. "She has been meeting what you call the right sort of men all her life. She doesn't want the life she'd lead with them. And as for saying that I've kept her down there, you know that's ridiculous. As a matter of fact it has rather worried me that she never wanted to go anywhere else, and I'd told her so." "I suppose she had fallen in love with this youth, and didn't want to go away." "Now you're talking more ridiculously than ever. I believe she was as much surprised as I was when she found out what had happened to her." "That doesn't sound very likely, George. You told me once that you would know all about it when Caroline's time came; and I told you, I remember, that you wouldn't know anything about it at all. And that's what has happened." "I suppose you want to annoy me, Mary. You can be the most exasperating of women, and I wonder James has put up with you as long as he has." "James knows when he's well off. I've never given him a moment's uneasiness in all my blameless life. Why on earth can't you get this put off, as you did with B? You acted so wisely there; and see what a reward you have had! She has made just the right sort of marriage, and is as happy as happy can be. It's delightful to see her." This speech had the effect of restoring his good humour. He laughed at her. "That's pretty cool, after the way you went for me last year, about B," he said.