Mrs. Elmore was silent.

"Celia," cried her husband indignantly, "I can't have you playing fast
and loose with me in this matter!"

"I suppose I may have time to think?" she retorted.

"Yes, if you will tell me what you _do_ think; but that I _must_ know.
It's a thing too vital in its consequences for me to act without your
full concurrence. I won't take another step in it till I know just how
far you have gone with me. If I may judge of what this man's influence
upon Lily would be by the fact that he has brought us to the verge of
the only real quarrel we've ever had"--

"Who's quarrelling, Owen?" asked Mrs. Elmore meekly. "I'm not."

"Well, well! we won't dispute about that. I want to know whether you
thought with me that it was improper for him to address her in the car?"

"Yes."

"And still more improper for him to join you in the street?"

"Yes. But he was very gentlemanly."

"No matter about that. You were just as much annoyed as I was by his
letter to her?"

"I don't know about annoyed. It scared me."

"Very well. And you approved of my answering it as I did?"

"I had nothing to do with it. I thought you were acting conscientiously.
I'll say that much."

"You've got to say more. You have got to say you approved of it; for you
know you did."

"Oh--_approved_ of it? Yes!"

"That's all I want. Now I agree with you that if we pass this letter in
silence, it will leave him with some hope. You agree with me that in a
marriage between an American girl and an Austrian officer the chances
would be ninety-nine to a hundred against her happiness at the best."

"There are a great many unhappy marriages at home," said Mrs. Elmore
impartially.

"That isn't the point, Celia, and you know it. The point is whether you
believe the chances are for or against her in such a marriage. Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Agree with me?"

"Yes; but I say they _might_ be _very_ happy. I shall always say that."

Elmore flung up his hands in despair. "Well, then, say what shall be
done now."

This was perhaps just what Mrs. Elmore did not choose to say. She was
silent a long time,--so long that Elmore said, "But there's really no
haste about it," and took some notes of his history out of a drawer, and
began to look them over, with his back turned to her.

"I never knew anything so heartless!" she cried. "Owen, this _must_ be
attended to at once! I can't have it hanging over me any longer. It will
make me sick."

He