Mrs. Leyburn listened to this summary of matrimonial philosophy with the same yielding flurried attention as she was always disposed to give to the last speaker.
'But,' she said, still in a maze, 'if she did care for him, why should she send him away?'
'Because she won't have him!' said Mrs. Thornburgh energetically, leaning over the arm of her chair that she might bring herself nearer to her companion.
The fatuity of the answer left Mrs. Leyburn staring.
'Because she won't have him, my dear Mrs. Leyburn! And—and—I'm sure nothing would make me interfere like this if I weren't so fond of you all, and if William and I didn't know for certain that there never was a better young man born! And then I was just sure you'd be the last person in the world, if you knew, to stand in young people's way!'
'I!' cried poor Mrs. Leyburn—'I stand in the way!' She was getting tremulous and tearful, and Mrs. Thornburgh felt herself a brute.
'Well,' she said, plunging on desperately, 'I have been thinking over it night and day. I've been watching him, and I've been talking to the girls, and I've been putting two and two together, and I'm just about sure that there might be a chance for Robert, if only Catherine didn't feel that you and the girls couldn't get on without her!'
Mrs. Leyburn took up her knitting again with agitated fingers. She was so long in answering that Mrs. Thornburgh sat and thought with trepidation of all sorts of unpleasant consequences which might result from this audacious move of hers.
'I don't know how we should get on,' cried Mrs. Leyburn at last, with a sort of suppressed sob, while something very like a tear fell on the stocking she held.
Mrs. Thornburgh was still more frightened, and rushed into a flood of apologetic speech. Very likely she was wrong, perhaps it was all a mistake, she was afraid she had done harm, and so on. Mrs. Leyburn took very little heed, but at last she said, looking up and applying a soft handkerchief gently to her eyes—