Mrs.Lascelles put no more absurdities into my mouth.
"Then what do you say ?" she demanded, her deep voice vibrant with scornful indignation, though there were tears in it too.
"I think he will be a lucky fellow who gets you," I said, and meant every word, as I looked at her well in the moonlight, with her shining eyes, and curling lip, and fighting flush.
"Thank you, Captain Clephane!" And I thought I was to be honoured with a contemptuous courtesy; but I was not.
"He ought to be a man, however," I went on, "and not a boy, and still less the only child of a woman with whom you would never get on." "So you are as sure of that," exclaimed Mrs.Lascelles, "as of everything else!" It seemed, however, to soften her, or at least to change the current of her thoughts.

"Yet you get on with her ?" she added with a wistful intonation.
I could not deny that I got on with Catherine Evers.
"You are even fond of her ?" "Quite fond." "Then do you find me a very disagreeable person, that she and I couldn't possibly hit it off, in your opinion ?" "It isn't that, Mrs.Lascelles," said I, almost wearily.

"You must know what it is.

You want to marry her son--" Mrs.Lascelles smiled.
"Well, let us suppose you do.

That would be quite enough for Mrs.Evers.
No matter who you were, how peerless, how incomparable in every way, she would rather die than let you marry him at his age.