The position seemed a little awkward to Melville for a moment. He flicked a fragment of orange peel into the road. "I want to get to the bottom of all this," said Lady Poynting Mallow. "Who _is_ this other woman?" "What other woman?" "_Tertium quid_," said Lady Poynting Mallow, with a luminous incorrectness. "Mermaid, I gather," said Melville. "What's the objection to her?" "Tail." "Fin and all?" "Complete." "You're sure of it?" "Certain." "How do you know?" "I'm certain," repeated Melville with a quite unusual testiness. The lady reflected. "Well, there are worse things in the world than a fishy tail," she said at last. Melville saw no necessity for a reply. "H'm," said Lady Poynting Mallow, apparently by way of comment on his silence, and for a space they went on. "That Glendower girl is a fool too," she added after a pause. My cousin opened his mouth and shut it again. How can one answer when ladies talk in this way? But if he did not answer, at any rate his preoccupation was gone. He was now acutely aware of the determined person at his side. "She has means?" she asked abruptly. "Miss Glendower?" "No. I know all about her. The other?" "The mermaid?" "Yes, the mermaid. Why not?" "Oh, _she_--Very considerable means. Galleons. Phoenician treasure ships, wrecked frigates, submarine reefs----" "Well, that's all right. And now will you tell me, Mr. Melville, why shouldn't Harry have her? What if she is a mermaid? It's no worse than an American silver mine, and not nearly so raw and ill-bred." "In the first place there's his engagement----" "Oh, _that_!" "And in the next there's the Sea Lady." "But I thought she----" "She's a mermaid." "It's no objection. So far as I can see, she'd make an excellent wife for him. And, as a matter of fact, down here she'd be able to help him in just the right way. The member here--he'll be fighting--this Sassoon man--makes a lot of capital out of deep-sea cables. Couldn't be better. Harry could dish him easily. That's all right. Why shouldn't he have her?" She stuck her hands deeply into the pockets of her dust-coat, and a china-blue eye regarded Melville from under the brim of the boldly trimmed bonnet. "You understand clearly she is a properly constituted mermaid with a real physical tail?" "Well?" said Lady Poynting Mallow. "Apart from any question of Miss Glendower----" "That's understood." "I think that such a marriage would be impossible." "Why?" My cousin played round the question. "She's an immortal, for example, with a past." "Simply makes her more interesting." Melville tried to enter into her point of view. "You think," he said, "she would go to London for him, and marry at St. George's, Hanover Square, and pay for a mansion in Park Lane and visit just anywhere he liked?" "That's precisely what she would do. Just now, with a Court that is waking up----" "It's precisely what she won't do," said Melville. "But any woman would do it who had the chance."