ed that if he hadn't he didn't wish to make a beginning in his
own family. In a quarter of an hour he repudiated the theories of a
lifetime, a gratifying triumph for simple elemental goodness. Having
denied the value of the subtler pretensions to charm in woman as you
marry her, he went artlessly on to endow Cecily with as many of them as
could possibly be desirable. He actually persuaded himself to say that
it was lovely to see the reflections of life in her tranquil spirit;
and when I looked at him incredulously he grew angry, and hinted that
Cecily's sensitiveness to reflections and other things might be a trifle
beyond her mother's ken. 'She responds instantly, intimately, to the
beautiful everywhere,' he declared.

'Aren't the opportunities of life on board ship rather limited to
demonstrate that?' I inquired. 'I know--you mean sunsets. Cecily is very
fond of sunsets. She is always asking me to come and look at them.'

'I was thinking of last night's sunset,' he confessed. 'We looked at it
together.'

'What did she say?' I asked idly.

'Nothing very much. That's just the point. Another girl would have raved
and gushed.'

'Oh, well, Cecily never does that,' I responded. 'Nevertheless she is
a very ordinary human instrument. I hope I shall have no temptation ten
years hence to remind you that I warned you of her quality.'

'I wish, not in the least for my own profit, for I am well convinced
already, but simply to win your cordiality and your approval--never did
an unexceptional wooer receive such niggard encouragement!--I wish there
were some sort of test for her quality. I would be proud to stand by it,
and you would be convinced. I can't find words to describe my objection
to your state of mind.'

The thing seemed to me to be a foregone conclusion. I saw it
accomplished, with all its possibilities of disastrous commonplace. I
saw all that I have here taken the trouble to foreshadow. So far as
I was concerned, Dacres's burden would add itself to my philosophies,
voila tout. I should always be a little uncomfortable about it, because
it had been taken from my back; but it would not be a matter for the
wringing of hands. And yet--the hatefulness of the mistake! Dacres's
bold talk of a test made no suggestion. Should my invention be more
fertile? I thought of something.

'You have said nothing to her yet?' I asked.

'Nothing. I don't think she suspects for a moment. She treats me as if
no such fell design we