‘You always go so much too far in everything, you boys. I am sure he would try to do it, but it would be very hard upon him. Percy, don’t you think you might get up your courage for another time?’ ‘It isn’t the courage,’ he said. And then after a moment:--‘After all, what’s the use? He’s not going to stay here all his life, and nothing can happen in a fortnight or so. Can’t you let it swing?’ ‘Nothing can happen in a fortnight or so! Why, it is just the time in which everything may happen. If he were settled here it would not be half so dangerous, there would seem no hurry then: whereas in a fortnight! we may have Elly engaged to him before we know where we are.’ ‘Come now, Aunt Mary. Poor Jack is nobody: that is not his fault: but he’s an honourable fellow, nobody can say anything against his honour. He couldn’t behave in an ungentlemanly way.’ ‘What has that to do with it?’ said Mrs. Egerton, exasperated. ‘Honourable! why, in ten years, with a good profession and getting on so well, he may be a great match.’ ‘Then why, in the name of heaven---- Oh, I’m speaking from your point of view. To me it would be horrid, anyhow--that fellow!--but if you think so----’ ‘I don’t want Elly to wait ten years,’ said Mrs. Egerton. ‘The longer a girl like Elly waits, the more fastidious she grows. If she does not marry till thirty, she will probably never marry at all.’ ‘She will probably not have the chance,’ Percy remarked. ‘That is all you know. You are all brutal on that question, you men. As if to have a chance was all that was necessary, and every woman was on the watch to obtain such an honour and glory.’ Having freed her mind in this way, Mrs. Egerton resumed:--‘What is the sister like? Is she common? Is she of the hospital-nurse or of the shop-girl type? Does he seem fond of her? Her appearance might do Elly good, perhaps.’ ‘Shop-girl!’ said Percy to himself. He grew pale with a sort of holy horror. ‘You women are dreadful,’ he said. ‘Talk of being brutal! I don’t know any angels myself, but I should think she would be more like that type.’ ‘Indeed!’ Mrs. Egerton said, and stopped and stared at him, a proceeding of which Percy showed his dislike by turning, if not his back, which would have been uncivil, at least the side of his clerical coat, and shaven cheek, to his relation’s eye. This made the gaze of scrutiny which she directed towards him innocuous, but raised her suspicions all the more. ‘Dear me,’ she said, ‘this is a sudden enthusiasm. I was not at all prepared for it. The mother was a striking-looking woman. What do you take for the angelic type, Percy, if I may ask?’