"And why should you wish it otherwise?" continued the dominant little lady. "Despite all the loose, unwomanly talk in the air, you do realize, I see, that marriage will always remain the noblest possible career for a woman." Cally remembered a converse of this proposition she had heard one day at the Woman's Club. She answered with light bitterness: "When I said just now that I was fit for marriage, I meant marriage, mamma--a wedding. Of course, I'm not fit to be anybody's wife...." She paused, and added in a voice from which the bitterness had all gone out: "I'm not fit to be anybody's mother." "There, there!" riposted mamma, briskly. "I think that's enough of poor Henrietta Cooney, and her wild, unsuccessful notions." There was another brief silence; the silence of the death of talk. "You're in a dangerously unsettled state of mind, my daughter--dangerously. But you will find, as other women have found, that marriage will relieve all these discontents. I myself," said mamma, with a considerable stretching of the truth, "went through the same stages in my youth--though, of course, I was married much younger than you.... Now, Carlisle, I have refused to believe that your quarrel with Hugo is irreparable." Carlisle started as if slapped. Had mamma jerked her by a string, she could not have turned more sharply. The little general, leaning forward, swept on with hurried firmness. "I see, of course, that you have taken your quarrel very seriously, very hard. You feel that in your anger you both said terrible things which can't possibly be overlooked. But, my child, remember that the course of true love never did run smooth. There have been few engagements which weren't broken off at least once, few marriages when the wife didn't make up her mind--" "Mamma!" said Cally, rousing herself as from a cataleptic sleep. "You can't have understood what I told you that night. This was not a quarrel at all, in any sense--" "I know! I understand! I withdraw the word cheerfully," said mamma, in just that tone and manner which made the strange similarity between her and Hugo. "But what I want to say, Cally, is this. Hugo is still in Washington. Willie Kerr, to whom I talked by telephone last night, had a telegram from him yesterday. Now, my child, men do not take women's angry speeches quite as seriously as you think. Hugo is mad about you. All he wants is _you_--" "Oh, please--_please_! Don't say any more. You don't--"