and I've promised to see him through."

She went on, after a moment's consideration, to explain that her
step-son's choice was, for various reasons, not likely to commend itself
to his grandmother. "She must be prepared for it, and I've promised to
do the preparing. You know I always HAVE seen him through things, and he
rather counts on me now."

She fancied that Darrow's exclamation had in it a faint note of
annoyance, and wondered if he again suspected her of seeking a pretext
for postponement.

"But once Owen's future is settled, you won't, surely, for the sake
of what you call seeing him through, ask that I should go away again
without you?" He drew her closer as they walked. "Owen will understand,
if you don't. Since he's in the same case himself I'll throw myself on
his mercy. He'll see that I have the first claim on you; he won't even
want you not to see it."

"Owen sees everything: I'm not afraid of that. But his future isn't
settled. He's very young to marry--too young, his grandmother is sure to
think--and the marriage he wants to make is not likely to convince her
to the contrary."

"You don't mean that it's like his first choice?"

"Oh, no! But it's not what Madame de Chantelle would call a good match;
it's not even what I call a wise one."

"Yet you're backing him up?"

"Yet I'm backing him up." She paused. "I wonder if you'll understand?
What I've most wanted for him, and shall want for Effie, is that
they shall always feel free to make their own mistakes, and never, if
possible, be persuaded to make other people's. Even if Owen's marriage
is a mistake, and has to be paid for, I believe he'll learn and grow in
the paying. Of course I can't make Madame de Chantelle see this; but I
can remind her that, with his character--his big rushes of impulse,
his odd intervals of ebb and apathy--she may drive him into some worse
blunder if she thwarts him now."

"And you mean to break the news to her as soon as she comes back from
Ouchy?"

"As soon as I see my way to it. She knows the girl and likes her: that's
our hope. And yet it may, in the end, prove our danger, make it harder
for us all, when she learns the truth, than if Owen had chosen a
stranger. I can't tell you more till I've told her: I've promised Owen
not to tell any one. All I ask you is to give me time, to give me a few
days at any rate She's been wonderfully 'nice,' as she would call it,
about you, and about the fact of my having soon to l