-in-law's
marriage.

The free expression of his anger was baffled by the fact that, even by
the farthest stretch of self-extenuating logic, he could find no one to
blame for the event but himself.

"Why on earth don't you say so--don't you call me a triple-dyed fool for
bringing them together?" he challenged Mrs. Ansell, as they had the
matter out together in the small intimate drawing-room of her New York
apartment.

Mrs. Ansell, stirring her tea with a pensive hand, met the challenge
composedly.

"At present you're doing it for me," she reminded him; "and after all,
I'm not so disposed to agree with you."

"Not agree with me? But you told me not to engage Miss Brent! Didn't you
tell me not to engage her?"

She made a hesitating motion of assent.

"But, good Lord, how was I to help myself? No man was ever in such a
quandary!" he broke off, leaping back to the other side of the argument.

"No," she said, looking up at him suddenly. "I believe that, for the
only time in your life, you were sorry then that you hadn't married me."

She held his eyes for a moment with a look of gentle malice; then he
laughed, and drew forth his cigarette-case.

"Oh, come--you've inverted the formula," he said, reaching out for the
enamelled match-box at his elbow. She let the pleasantry pass with a
slight smile, and he went on reverting to his grievance: "Why _didn't_
you want me to engage Miss Brent?"

"Oh, I don't know...some instinct."

"You won't tell me?"

"I couldn't if I tried; and now, after all----"

"After all--what?"

She reflected. "You'll have Cicely off your mind, I mean."

"Cicely off my mind?" Mr. Langhope was beginning to find his charming
friend less consolatory than usual. After all, the most magnanimous
woman has her circuitous way of saying _I told you so_. "As if any good
governess couldn't have done that for me!" he grumbled.

"Ah--the present care for her. But I was looking ahead," she rejoined.

"To what--if I may ask?"

"The next few years--when Mrs. Amherst may have children of her own."

"Children of her own?" He bounded up, furious at the suggestion.

"Had it never occurred to you?"

"Hardly as a source of consolation!"

"I think a philosophic mind might find it so."

"I should really be interested to know how!"

Mrs. Ansell put down her cup, and again turned her gentle tolerant eyes
upon him.

"Mr. Amherst, as a father, will take a more conservative view of his
duties. Every o