“I was going to say the fortitude. But this,” he went on, “was an elderly cousin, who expressed a wish to come and be my housekeeper. Perhaps matrimony was not intended. Mathilde, my dear, how does one tell nowadays whether one is being proposed to or not?” In this poignant and unexpected crisis Mathilde turned slowly and painfully crimson. How _did_ one tell? It was a question which at the moment was anything but clear to her. “I should always assume it in doubtful cases, sir,” said Wayne, very distinctly. He and Mathilde did not even glance at each other. “It wasn’t your proposal that you came to announce to us, though, was it, Papa?” said Adelaide. “No,” answered Mr. Lanley. “The fact is, I’ve been arrested.” “Again?” “Yes; most unjustly, most unjustly.” His brows contracted, and then relaxed at a happy memory. “It’s the long, low build of the car. It looks so powerful that the police won’t give you a chance. It was nosing through the park--” “At about thirty miles an hour,” said Farron. “Well, not a bit over thirty-five. A lovely morning, no one in sight, I may have let her out a little. All of a sudden one of these mounted fellows jumped out from the bushes along the bridle-path. They’re a fine-looking lot, Vincent.” Farron asked who the judge was, and, Mr. Lanley named him--named him slightly wrong, and Farron corrected him. “I’ll get you off,” he said. Adelaide looked up at her husband admiringly. This was the aspect of him that she loved best. It seemed to her like magic what Vincent could do. Her father, she thought, took it very calmly. What would have happened to him if she had not brought Farron into the family to rescue and protect? The visiting boy, she noticed, was properly impressed. She saw him give Farron quite a dog-like look as he took his departure. To Mathilde he only bowed. No arrangements had been made for a future meeting. Mathilde tried to convey to him in a prolonged look that if he would wait only five minutes all would be well, that her grandfather never paid long visits; but the door closed behind him. She became immediately overwhelmed by the fear, which had an element of desire in it, too, that her family would fall to discussing him, would question her as to how long she had known him, and why she liked him, and what they talked about, and whether she had been expecting a visit, sitting there in her best dress. Then slowly she took in the fact that they were going to talk about nothing but Mr. Lanley’s arrest. She marveled at the obtuseness of older people--to have stood at the red-hot center of youth and love and not even to know it! She drew her shoulders together, feeling very lonely and strong. As they talked, she allowed her eyes to rest first on one speaker and then on the other, as if she were following each word of the discussion. As a matter of fact she was rehearsing with an inner voice the tone of Wayne’s voice when he had said that he loved her.