"Well?"
"I spent the afternoon with her to-day," said the Major sheepishly, "while you were at Donard with the judge."
"I don't wonder," said Meldon, "that you're ashamed of yourself. I begin to see now why Simpkins has behaved in the extraordinary way he has. I was inclined to blame him at first. In fact, I'm afraid I said rather hard things about him. I admit now that I was wrong. Simpkins couldn't and wouldn't go near her while you were there. It would have been no use if he had. I must say, Major, you are a most difficult man to work with. Here I've been sacrificing the whole of my short holiday to carrying through a difficult negotiation for your benefit, and all you do is to balk me at every turn, to fling obstacles in my way, to foul every rope I'm trying to get a pull on. How can I marry Simpkins to Miss King if you won't let him go near her?"
"She won't marry him, J. J.; so you may put the idea out of your head once for all. She doesn't like him."
"I suppose," said Meldon, "that you spent the afternoon crabbing him; saying all the evil you could think of about him. But you've wasted your time. Miss King's views of marriage are entirely unconventional. She doesn't marry her husbands with the intention of living with them. The less she likes a man the more willing she is to marry him, because she'll feel less compunction afterwards if she thoroughly detests her husband to start with."
"She won't marry Simpkins, any how," said the Major obstinately.
"Did she tell you so?"
"Not in plain words. I gathered that she wouldn't from the way she spoke of him."
"You've gathered, as you call it, so many entirely wrong things from the way Miss King speaks, that you can place absolutely no reliance on this impression of yours. You gathered, for instance, that she isn't Mrs. Lorimer."
"I did."