"Of course I don't want to hurry Jane—"
"Of course not," he acquiesced.
"But I pointed out to her that a young man of Mr. Budd's impulsive temperament might—might be easily discouraged—"
"Yes; and what did she say?"
"She said that if she was worth winning she was worth waiting for."
VI
The period of Mr. Budd's probation could scarcely have cost him as much mental anguish as it caused his would-be parents-in-law.
Mrs. Lethbury, by various ruses, tried to shorten the ordeal, but Jane remained inexorable; and each morning Lethbury came down to breakfast with the certainty of finding a letter of withdrawal from her discouraged suitor.
When at length the decisive day came, and Mrs. Lethbury, at its close, stole into the library with an air of chastened joy, they stood for a moment without speaking; then Mrs. Lethbury paid a fitting tribute to the proprieties by faltering out: "It will be dreadful to have to give her up—"
Lethbury could not repress a warning gesture; but even as it escaped him, he realized that his wife's grief was genuine.