need_ not go out."

He averted his face, let his head fall back upon his pillow, and drew
up his suffering leg. Whether he really was in pain, or only wished to
break off the conversation, was not quite evident.

After a moment of breathless silence on both sides: "It is well," she
said, with smothered utterance; "there are not many things in the world
that could surprise me now; from _you_, nothing!--but that your way of
thinking could be so base as this, even I could scarce be prepared
for."

"Oho!" he said, very coolly. "Be so good as to spare these grand
expressions for an occasion where they may seem more fitting. What I
now say, and what I intend to do, I am ready to account for before any
jurisdiction whatever, and call on my own seeing eyes to witness.
Lovers are blind, we all know that; only they need not suppose other
people to be blind as well."

"Lovers!" she echoed, with an irrepressible gust of passion.

"Lovers; I say, lovers;" he repeated, with emphasis: "He, at least, is
on the high-road to that condition, whether he be aware of it or not;
and you must have lived these nine-and-twenty years in a maze, if you
really do not see that you are over head and ears in love with the boy.
You don't mean to come to me, I hope, with that trash and nonsense
about adoption and maternal feelings. The thing is as I state it,
whatever you may please to say. But if you do search your heart, and
ask yourself what is to be the end of it--whether you mean to go on
rejecting respectable men who would make good husbands, for the sake of
your nonsensical love-scenes with a half grown hobbledehoy----"

"Enough," she interrupted him, with glowing cheeks: "Now I assuredly do
know enough of yourself and your opinions. They cannot affect me much,
for I never had any ambition with regard to them. There are many things
in which we differ, only before I turn my back upon you, I should be
glad to hear what you have resolved upon in this matter."

"As I have repeatedly told you; I am resolved to make an end of this,
and part you two, the sooner, the better."

"And how?"

"As it turns out. If you take the wisest course, and marry Dr. Hansen,
it would be the best plan for all of us, and a better proof of your
sincerity with your motherhood, than all this ranting, and shrugging of
shoulders. If you cannot make up your mind to this, the boy will have
to go."

"As a Wanderbursch? As a common house-painter?"

"As a house-painter