He cast his mind back; he tried to remember a conversation held in this very room only two or three weeks ago. But Mr. Gumberg had come to a time of life when it is more easy to recall conversations of half a century old than words uttered yesterday. He had indeed been blind, 'amazing blind, and stoopid, stoopid, stoopid!' so he exclaimed to himself, vexed that no suspicion of the truth should have crossed his mind while Downing had been asking him those eager, insistent questions concerning Mrs. Robinson and the Wantley family. And now? Well, now that the house was well alight they came and asked him, Mr. Gumberg, how to extinguish the flames. This was not the first time--no, not by many--that the old man had been required to lend his aid in such a case, and, as a rule, he always advised that the fire be left to burn itself out. The counsellor's long experience had taught him that such flames always did burn out if left severely alone--if no fuel, in the shape of lamentations and good advice, were added by the incautious. But this matter of Downing and Mrs. Robinson was more complicated than most. Pursuing his favourite metaphor, the old man said to himself that here was no flimsy thatch of straw which, when the embers were cold, could be restored, patched up again, on the old walls. Rather was Penelope like to one of those old-world frigates, proudly riding the sea, all afire and aglow, a wonderful sight to those safe on shore, but of whose splendour there would remain nothing but a shapeless, indescribable hulk, when all she bore had been burnt to the water's edge. Sitting there, turning about in his still agile mind the story, as just told him in bare outline, he reminded himself that Mrs. Robinson, though a powerful, wilful creature, was not the stuff out of which have been fashioned the great, steadfast lovers of the world. 'Why, if all were well--if she became the man's wife ten times over--she would never be content to spend her whole life in Teheran!' he muttered; and then more loudly: 'No, no; we must find a way out!' One question he longed to ask of Lady Wantley, for he felt that on the true answer much depended that would modify his judgment, and guide his opinion, as to what the immediate future must bring. But Mr. Gumberg was old-fashioned; his code as to what could, or rather what could not, be said to a lady was strict and meagre. Accordingly, he felt it impossible to put to this revered and trustful friend the question he longed to utter. Still, there might be a way round. He asked abruptly: 'How much of the six months--I don't think it was more--did Penelope actually spend at the Settlement? I mean, of course, between her wedding-day and poor young Robinson's death?'