She did not meet his glance, but continued to gaze in a practically-abstracted way into the fender, while with one hand she smoothed a corner of her sealskin jacket.
'You will admit,' she continued at length with apparent irrelevance, 'that every action, or every course of action, is liable to several constructions.'
His reply was ready at once—a fact worth noticing in a man whose exterior habits would have led most observers to a belief that his mental method was slow.
'Yes; but the various constructions could not well be taken into account in anticipation. The attempt would be a death-blow to all action.'
The astute lady knew that she was understood, so she moved on in the same drift.
'I admit that,' she said; 'but ... in a course of procedure, the construction put upon the first actions should be allowed to carry some weight in subsequent proceedings. If ... I mean ... it is deleterious to others, the course might well be amended.'
Trist acknowledged the ability of this argument without enthusiasm.
'Nevertheless,' he said after a pause, 'people have mapped out for themselves a course of action, have held to it despite adverse criticism, and have in the end been triumphant.'
Mrs. Wylie now looked up rather keenly.
'Then,' she said significantly, 'yours is a course of action, and not mere idle drifting with the tide.'