Sally's marginal note on this point. The countercheck was effectual,
and from her position of vantage the lady fired her first shot.

"You know perfectly well what I want to speak about." The awkward part
of this was that the Professor did know.

"Suppose I do; go on!" This only improved his position very slightly,
but it compelled the bill to be read a first time.

"Do you wish your daughter to marry a haberdasher?"

"I do not. If I did, I should take her round to some of the shops."

But his wife is in no humour to be jested with. "If you cannot be
serious, Mr. Wilson, about a serious matter, which concerns the
lifelong well-being of your eldest daughter, I am only wasting my time
in talking to you." She threatens an adjournment with a slight move.
Her husband selects another attitude, and comes to business.

"You may just as well say what you have come to say, Roberta. It's
about Laetitia and this young musician fellow, I suppose. Why can't
you leave them alone?" Now, you see, here was a little triumph for
Roberta--she had actually succeeded in getting the subject into the
realm of discussion without committing herself to any definite
statement, or, in fact, really saying what it was. She could prosecute
it now indirectly, on the lines of congenial contradiction of her
husband.

"I fully expected to be accused of interfering with what does not
concern me. I am not surprised. My daughter's welfare is, it appears,
to be of as little interest to me as it is to her father. Very well."

"What do you wish me to do? Will you oblige me by telling me what
it is you understand we are talking about?" A gathering storm of
determination must be met, the Dragon decides, by a corresponding
access of asperity on her part. She rises to the occasion.

"I will tell you about what I do _not_ understand. But I do not expect
to be listened to. I do _not_ understand how any father can remain in
his library, engaged in work which cannot possibly be remunerative,
while his eldest daughter contracts a disgraceful marriage with a
social inferior." The irrelevance about remuneration was ill-judged.

"I can postpone the Dictionary--if that will satisfy you--and go on
with some articles for the Encyclopaedia, which pay very well, until
after the ceremony. Is the date fixed?"

"It is easy for you to affect stupidity, and to answer me with would-be
witty evasions. But if you think to deter me from my duty--a mother's
duty--by such piti