She got hold of him one afternoon after he had finished his round, and was strolling up with the rest through the garden on their way to tea on the terrace. Tea was not quite ready, and she took him off to her rock-garden, with which his was now in hot competition. Caroline had been coming with them, but Lady Mansergh sent her back. "I've got something to say to your father, dear," she said. "You go and talk to somebody else. You shall come along with me and look at the sempervivums after tea if you want to."
She lost no time in coming to the point. "Now, Mr. Grafton," she said, "I like you and you like me; there's no offence between friends. Can't you do something for that poor dear little girl of yours? She's crying her eyes out for the man she loves. I can see it if you can't. A father's a father, but he hadn't ought to act harsh to his children. You'll have her going into a decline if you don't do something."
Grafton stood still and faced her. "I didn't know it was that you wanted to talk to me about," he said. "Really, Lady Mansergh, I can't discuss it with you. Let's go back to the others."
She laid her fat hand on his sleeve. "Now don't cut up offended, there's a dear man," she said in a pleading soothing voice. "I do so love those girls of yours, that it isn't like interfering. Just let me talk to you a bit about it. No harm'll be done if you can't see it as I do when we've had our little chat."
He walked on again with her. "There's nothing to talk about," he said. "I don't know what you know or from whom you know it, but the facts are that the man asked for my permission to marry Beatrix and then withdrew his request. He has now left England and—well, there's an end of it. He is going, evidently, to forget all about her, and she must learn to forget him. She'll do it quickly enough if her kind friends will leave her alone, and not encourage her to think she's been hardly used. She hasn't been hardly used by me, and to be perfectly straight with you I don't like being told that I'm dealing harshly with my children. It isn't true, and couldn't be true, loving all of them as I do."
"Oh, I know you're a perfect father to them," said Lady Mansergh enthusiastically. "And they simply adore you—every one of them. I'm sure it does anybody good to see you together. But what I think, you know, Mr. Grafton, is that when fathers love their daughters as you love those sweet girls of yours, and depend a lot on them, as, of course, you do, with your wife gone, poor man!—well, you don't like 'em falling in love. It means somebody else being put first like, when you've always been first yourself. But lor', Mr. Grafton, they won't love you any the less when they take husbands. You'll always be second if you can't be first; and first you can't always be, with human nature what it is, and husbands counting for more than fathers."
"I think that's perfectly true," said Grafton, in an easy voice. "A father can't hope to be first when his daughters marry, but he'll generally remain second. Well, when my daughters do marry I shall be content to take that position, and I shall always remember you warned me that I should have to. Thank you very much."
"Ah, now you're laughing at me," she said, looking up in his face, "but you're angry all the same. You ought not to be angry. I'm telling you the woman's side. When a woman loves a man she loves him whatever he is, and if he hasn't been quite what he ought, if she's a good woman she can make him different. That's what she thinks, and she's right to think it. The chance of trying ought not to be took from her."
"Perhaps not," said Grafton. "But in this case it has been taken from her by the man himself. It comes down to that first and last, Lady Mansergh. It's very kind of you to interest yourself in the matter, but really there's nothing to be done, except to encourage Beatrix to forget all about it. If you'll take your part in doing that, you'll be doing her a good turn, and me too."
"There is something to be done, and you could do it," she said. "That's to write and tell the Marquis that you spoke hurriedly. However, I know you won't do it, so I shan't press you any more."