again, you refuse—refuse!" She stops as if choking.

"I don't think my gambling debts are the actual cause of our worries," says her son, rather coldly. "If I have wasted a few hundred on a race here and there, it is all I have done. When the property came into my hands it was dipped very deeply."

"You would accuse your father——" begins she hotly.

Rylton pauses. "No; not my father," says he distinctly, if gently.

"You mean, then, that you accuse me!" cries she, flashing round at him.

All at once her singularly youthful face grows as old as it ought to be—a vindictive curve round the mouth makes that usually charming feature almost repulsive.

"My dear mother, let us avoid a scene," says her son sternly. "To tell you the truth, I have had too many of them of late."

Something in his manner warns her to go no farther in the late direction. If she is to win the cause so close to her heart, she had better refrain from recrimination—from an accusation of any sort.

"Dearest Maurice," says she, going to him and taking his hand in hers, "you know it is for your sake only I press this dreadful matter. She is so rich, and you—we—are so poor! She has a house in Surrey, and one in the North—delightful places, I have been told—and, of course, she would like you to keep up your own house in town. As for me, all I ask is this old house—bare and uncomfortable as it is."

"Nonsense, mother," letting her hand go and turning away impatiently. "You speak as if it were all settled."

"Why should it not be settled?"

"You talk without thinking!" He is frowning now, and his tone is growing angry. "Am I the only one to be consulted?"

"Oh! as for her—that child! Of course you can influence her."

"I don't want to," wearily.

"You can do more than that. You are very good-looking, Maurice. You can——" She hesitates.

"Can what?" coldly.

"Fascinate her."

"I shall certainly not even try to do that. Good heavens! what do you mean?" says her son, colouring a dark red with very shame. "Are you asking me to make love to this girl—to pretend an admiration for her that I do not feel? To—to—lie to her?"

"I am only asking you to be sensible," says his mother sullenly. She has gone back to her chair, and now, with lowered lids and compressed lips, is fanning herself angrily.

"I shan't be sensible in that way," says her son, very hotly. "Put it out of your head. To me Miss Bolton (it is really ridiculous to call her Miss anything; she ought to be Betty, or Lizzie, or Lily, or whatever her name is, to everyone at her age)—to me she seems nothing but a baby—and—I hate babies!"

"Marian has taught you!" Says his mother, with a sneer. "She certainly is not a baby, whatever else she may be. But I tell you this, Maurice, that you will hate far more being left a beggar in the world, without enough money to keep yourself alive."

"I am sure I can keep myself alive."

"Yes, but how? You, who have been petted and pampered all your life?"

"Oh, don't speak to me as if I were in the cradle!" says Maurice, with a shrug.

"Do you never think?"

"Sometimes".

"Oh yes, of Marian. That designing woman! Do you believe I haven't read her, if you are still blind? She will hold you on and on and on. And if your uncle should chance to die, why, then she will marry you; but if in the meantime she meets anyone with money who will marry her, why, good-bye to you. But you must not marry! Mind that! You must be held in chains whilst she goes free. Really, Maurice," rising and regarding him with extreme contempt, "your folly is so great over this absurd infatuation for Marian, that sometimes I wonder if you can be my own son."

"I am my father's son also," says Maurice. "He, I believe, did sometimes believe in somebody. He believed in you."

He turns away abruptly, and an inward laugh troubles him. Was that last gibe not an argument against himself, his judgment? Like his father; is he like his father? Can he, too, see only gold where dross lies deep? Sometimes, of late he has doubted. The laughter dies away, he sighs heavily.

"He was wise," says Lady Rylton coolly. "He had no cause to regret his belief. But you, you sit in a corner, as it were, and see nothing but Marian smiling. You never see Marian frowning. Your corner suits you. It would trouble you too much to come out into the middle of the room and look around Marian. And in the end what will it all come to? Nothing!"

"Then why make yourself so unhappy about nothing?"

"Because——"

"My dear mother," turning rather fiercely on her, "let us have an end of this. Marian would not marry me. She has refused me many times."

"I am quite aware of that," says Lady Rylton calmly. "She has taken care to tell me so. She will never marry you unless you get your uncle's money (and he is as likely to live to be a Methuselah as anyone I ever saw; the scandalous way in which he takes care of his health is really a byword!), but she will hold you on until——"

"I asked you not to go on with this," says Rylton, interrupting he again. "If you have nothing better to say to me than the abuse of Marian, I——"

"But I have. What is Marian, what is anything to me except your marriage with Tita Bolton? Maurice, think of it. Promise me you will think of it. Maurice, don't go."

She runs to him, lays her hand on his arm, and tries to hold him.

"I must." He lifts her hand from his arm, presses it, and drops it deliberately. "My dear mother, I can't; I can't, really," says he.

She stands quite still. As he reaches the door, he looks back. She is evidently crying. A pang shoots through his heart. But it is all so utterly impossible. To marry that absurd child! It is out of question. Still, her tears trouble him. He can see her crying as he crosses the hall, and then her words begin to trouble him even more. What was it she had said about Marian? It was a hint, a very broad one. It meant that Marian might love him if he were a poor man, but could love him much more if he were a rich one. As a fact, she would marry him if he had money, but not if he were penniless. After all, why not? She, Marian, had often said all that to him, or at least some of it. But that other word, of her marrying some other man should he appear——