Though the words uttered themselves, without calculation or expectation on my part, they gave me so much of the courage of conviction that I held up my head. To my surprise Mrs. Billing didn't crow again or so much as laugh. She only gasped out that long "Ha-a!" which proclaims the sporting interest, of which both Hugh and Ethel Rossiter had told me in the morning. Mr. Brokenshire seemed to brace himself, leaning forward, with his elbow on the table and his cigar between the fingers of his raised right hand. His eyes were bent on me--fine eyes they were!--as if in kindly amusement. "My good girl," he said, in his most pitying voice, "I wish I could tell you how sorry for you I am. Neither of these dreams can possibly come true--" My blood being up, I interrupted with some force. "Then in that case, Mr. Brokenshire, you can be quite easy in your mind, for I should never marry your son." Having made this statement, I followed it up by saying, "Since that is understood, I presume there's no object in my staying any longer." I was half rising when his hand went up. "Wait. We'll tell you when to go. You haven't yet got my point. Perhaps I haven't made it clear. I'm not interested in your hopes--" "No, sir; of course not; nor I in yours." "I haven't inquired as to that--but we'll let it pass. We're both apparently interested in my son." I gave a little bow of assent. "I said I wished to make an appeal to you." I made another little bow of assent. "It's on his behalf. You could do him a great kindness. You could make him understand--I gather that he's under your influence to some degree; you're a clever girl, I can see that--but you could make him understand that in fancying he'll marry you he's starting out on a task in which there's no hope whatever." "But there is." "Pardon me, there isn't. By your own showing there isn't. You've laid down conditions that will never be fulfilled." "What makes you say that?" "My knowledge of the world." "Oh, but would you call that knowledge of the world?" I was swept along by the force of an inner indignation which had become reckless. "Knowledge of the world," I hurried on, "implies knowledge of the human heart, and you've none of that at all." I could see him flush. "My good girl, we're here to speak of you, not of me--" "Surely we're here to speak of us both, since at any minute I choose I can marry your son. If I don't marry him it's because I don't choose; but when I do choose--" Again the hand went up. "Yes, of course; but that's not what we want specially to hear. Let us assume, as you say, that you can marry my son at any time you choose. You don't choose, for the reason that you're astute enough to see that your last state would be worse than the first. To enter a family that would disown you at once--"