"Does he?" asked Elmore. "I hadn't noticed that."
"Perhaps you'd better read some of your letters, Owen, before you answer them!"
"Really, I had forgotten. I had forgotten that the letter was written to me at all. I thought it was to Lily, and she had got to thinking so too. Well, then, I won't do anything about it." He drew a breath of relief.
"Perhaps," suggested his wife, "he asked that so as to leave himself some hope if he should happen to meet her again."
"And we don't wish him to have any hope."
"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?"
"And still more improper for him to join you in the street?"
"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."
"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?"
"Yes; but I say they _might_ be _very_ happy. I shall always say that."