"You really ought," she said, "to have married Gertrude."

"You've told me that several times already."

"She wouldn't have plagued you night and day."

He owned it.

"Isn't it rather a pity that she ever left?"

"Why, what else could the poor woman do?"

"Stay, of course."

He had never thought of that solution; he would, if he had been asked, have judged it unthinkable.

"Supposing," said Jinny, "you asked her, very nicely, to come back—don't you think that would save us?"

No; he never would have thought of it himself; but since she had put it that way, as saving them, saving Jinny, that was to say; well, he owned, wouldn't it?