"I, too, have been dreading the subject," she said, "if it is what I think it is. You are going to speak of Sylvia, Mr. Plummer, and Mr. Harley."
"Yes, Harley has a letter from Sylvia, and he will have more. She doesn't want to write to him, but she will. The girl is breaking her heart, and I am not sure that you and I are doing what we ought to do."
"And you do not think that Mr. Plummer would make a suitable husband for her?"
She regarded him keenly from under lowered eyelids—the question was merely intended to lead to something else.
"That is not the point. Harley is the man she loves, and Harley is the man she should marry."
"Should she not decide this question for herself?"
The candidate studied the face of his wife. Her words, if taken simply as words, would seem metallic and cold, but there was an expression that gave them a wholly different meaning to him.
"Under ordinary circumstances, yes," he said, "but the circumstances in which Sylvia finds herself are not ordinary, and I am not sure how far we are responsible for them."
"I undertook to act once, and I was sorry that I did so."