It is a disturbing thought that we suffer in this world just as much by being prudent and taking precautions as we do by being rash and impulsive and acting as the spirit moves us. If Jill had been permitted by her wary fiancé to come with him to the station to meet his mother, it is certain that much trouble would have been avoided. True, Lady Underhill would probably have been rude to her in the opening stages of the interview, but she would not have been alarmed and suspicious; or, rather, the vague suspicion which she had been feeling would not have solidified, as it did now, into definite certainty of the worst. All that Derek had effected by his careful diplomacy had been to convince his mother that he considered his bride-elect something to be broken gently to her. 

 She stopped and faced him. 

 “Who is she?” she demanded. “Who is this girl?” 

 Derek flushed. 

 “I thought I made everything clear in my letter.” 

 “You made nothing clear at all.” 

 “By your leave!” chanted a porter behind them, and a baggage-truck clove them apart. 

 “We can’t talk in a crowded station,” said Derek irritably. “Let me get you to the taxi and take you to the hotel. … What do you want to know about Jill?” 

 “Everything. Where does she come from? Who are her people? I don’t know any Mariners.” 

 “I haven’t cross-examined her,” said Derek stiffly. “But I do know that her parents are dead. Her father was an American.” 

 “American!” 

 “Americans frequently have daughters, I believe.” 

 “There is nothing to be gained by losing your temper,” said Lady Underhill with steely calm. 

 “There is nothing to be gained, as far as I can see, by all this talk,” retorted Derek. He wondered vexedly why his mother always had this power of making him lose control of himself. He hated to lose control of himself. It upset him, and blurred that vision which he liked to have of himself as a calm, important man superior to ordinary weaknesses. “Jill and I are engaged, and there is an 

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