"I don't think you know Marjorie as well as I do."
"But she can't——"
"She can. It's you—you'll want to take two housemaids for her. Even you.... Men are not fair to women."
Trafford put his untasted tea upon the mantelshelf, and confronted his mother with a question point blank. "Does Marjorie care for me?" he asked.
"You're the sun of her world."
"But she goes her way."
"She's clever, she's full of life, full of activities, eager to make and arrange and order; but there's nothing she is, nothing she makes, that doesn't centre on you."
"But if she cared, she'd understand!"
"My dear, do you understand?"
He stood musing. "I had everything clear," he said. "I saw my way to Labrador...."