‘Oh, hush!’ says Mrs. Prior, making an entreating gesture; ‘don’t speak so loud. That poor child of mine—that poor, poor child—is there’—pointing to the door on her left—‘and if she heard this, it would almost kill her, I think.’ Mrs. Prior throws a little tragedy into her pale blue eyes. ‘Her heart is deeply concerned—is filled, indeed, with Paul! As you know, George, for years this engagement has been thought of.’ ‘Engagement?’ ‘Between’—a little impatiently, but solemnly—‘Paul and——’ She stops as if heart-broken, and covers her face with her handkerchief. ‘Virginia,’ is on the tip of Crosby’s tongue, but by a noble effort he swallows it. ‘My unhappy Josephine,’ says Mrs. Prior, having commanded her grief. ‘For myself, I cannot see what the end of this thing will be.’ ‘It’s an unlucky name beyond doubt,’ says Crosby, growing historical. ‘I don’t think I’d christen another—h’m—I mean, I don’t think it is a good name to call a girl by, don’t you know; but I fail to see where the unhappiness comes in this time.’ ‘Don’t you? Do you imagine my poor child would wed a man with such disgraceful antecedents? I had thought of the marriage for next year; but now! And dear Shangarry has so set his heart on a union between my girl and Paul. Only last month he was speaking to me about it. It will be a horrible blow to the poor old man. Indeed, I shouldn’t wonder if he disinherited Paul on account of it.’ Here she looks steadily, meaningly at Crosby. It is a challenge. Crosby quite understands that he is to convey to Wyndham that he is to give up his tenant, or else Mrs. Prior will declare war upon him, and prejudice the old man, his uncle, against him. ‘On account of what?’ asks he, unmoved. ‘Because he has a tenant in his cottage, or because——’ ‘Oh, tenant!’ Mrs. Prior makes a swift movement of her white and beautiful hands. ‘Or, because——’ She interrupts him again, as he has expected. He has no desire whatever to go on; to say to her, ‘because he will probably refuse to marry your daughter,’ would be a little too broad. He has risked the beginning of his speech with a hope of frightening her into some sort of propriety; but he has failed. ‘There will be a scandal,’ says she, with determination. ‘Not unless somebody insists upon one.’ Crosby crosses one leg over the other with a judicial air. ‘And scandals are so very vulgar.’ ‘Quite the most vulgar things one knows; but they do occur, for all that. And if Shangarry once knew that Paul so much as wavered in his allegiance to Josephine, he would be very hard to manage.’ ‘But has it, then, gone so far as that?’ ‘Far! What can be farther? A girl, a young girl, and a—well, I dare say there are some who would call her beautiful—kept in seclusion, called, for decency’s sake, his tenant——’