"My dear child, what _do_ you mean?" Mrs. Beale said gently to Evadne, taking her hand. "I mean that he is bad--thoroughly bad," said Evadne. "Why! Now tell me, what do you know about him?" the old lady asked, leading Evadne to a sofa, and making her sit down beside her upon it. Her manner was always excessively soothing, and the first heat of Evadne's indignation began to subside as she came under the influence of it. "I don't know anything about him," she answered confusedly; "but I don't like the way he looks at me!" "Oh, come, now! that is childish!" Mrs. Beale said, smiling. "No, it is not! I am sure it is not!" Evadne rejoined, knitting her brows in a fruitless endeavour to grasp some idea that evaded her, some item of information that had slipped from her mind. "I feel--I have a consciousness which informs me of things my intellect cannot grasp. And I _do_ know!" she exclaimed, her mental vision clearing as she proceeded. "I have heard Colonel Colquhoun drop hints." "And you would condemn him upon hints?" Edith interjected contemptuously. "I know that if Colonel Colquhoun hints that there is something objectionable about a man it must be something very objectionable indeed," Evadne answered, cooling suddenly. Edith turned crimson. "Evadne--_dear_," Mrs. Beale remonstrated, patting her hand emphatically to restrain her. "Edith has accepted him because she loves him, and that is enough." "If it were love it would be," Evadne answered. "But it is not love she feels. Prove to her that this man is not a fit companion for her, and she will droop for a while, and then recover. The same thing would happen if you separated them for years without breaking off the engagement. Love which lasts is a condition of the mature mind; it is a fine compound of inclination and knowledge, controlled by reason, which makes the object of it, not a thing of haphazard, but a matter of choice. Mrs. Beale," she reiterated, "you will not let Edith marry that dreadful man!" "My dear child," Mrs. Beale replied, speaking with angelic mildness, "your mind is quite perverted on this subject, and how it comes to be so I cannot imagine, for your mother is one of the sweetest, truest, most long suffering _womanly_ women I ever knew. And so is Lady Adeline Hamilton-Wells--and Mrs. Orton Beg. You have been brought up among womanly women, none of whom ever even _thought_ such things as you do not hesitate to utter, I am sure." "I once heard a discussion between Lady Adeline and Aunt Olive," Evadne rejoined. "It was about a lady who had a very bad husband, and had patiently endured a great deal. 'It is beautiful--pathetic--pitiful to see a woman making the best of a bad bargain in that way,' Aunt Olive said. 'It may be all that,' Lady Adeline answered; '_but is it right?_ If this generation would object to bad bargains, the next would have fewer to make the best of.'"