"You hear my mother, sir! Isn't that conclusive?"
He passed through the window and out of sight, the Earl and the Countess staring at the place where he had been. The Earl was the first to speak.
"Jemima, what on earth was the use of saying a thing like that? Don't you know him better than to threaten?"
"What am I to say? what am I to do? Who'd have children!--they're the cause of suffering and sorrow to their mothers from their cradles to their graves! I wish I'd never had one!"
"My dear Jemima, I dare say, also, you wish you had two heads, but you haven't. For my part, I don't know that I regret the line he's taken up."
"Harold! Do you wish to see him ruined?"
"Not at all; quite the other way; that's exactly it. In cases of this sort, when the man throws over the woman there's a certain amount of odium attached to his conduct--I realize that as clearly as he does; but when she throws him over that's another thing. Robert's pig-headed----"
"Like his father!"
"And his mother! he's no worse on that account, Jemima, not in the sense in which I use the word. You'll not move him, but you will the girl; there's your objective. In her way, unless I'm mistaken, she's as pig-headed as he is. He may use all the eloquence he has at his command, but, after what you said to her, and the way in which you put things, I doubt if she'll marry him though he pleads till he is dumb--they are a pair of Quixotes; when it comes to rank, downright Quixotry, she'll beat him on his own ground."
And the lady considered her lord's words.