The statement was slightly over-coloured, since Julian was of age, and his mother was no longer his guardian in any legal sense; but to stern moralists of Falconer’s type, to whom the pretty little falsenesses of life are wholly to be condemned, a slight misstatement in such a case is frequently permissible. The brief, uncompromising words had seemed to him to set the key of the interview beyond mistake. He was consequently slightly taken aback by their effect. Every trace of colour died out of Clemence’s face, and two great dilated eyes gazed at him for an instant in dumb agony before she whispered: “He’s not--dead?” Falconer made a slight, almost contemptuous, negative gesture. He had no intention of being imposed upon by theatrical arts, and as Clemence, her self-control shattered by the sudden relief, turned instinctively away, and pressed her face down on the arm with which she had caught at the curtain for support, he went on with immoveable sternness: “My business has to do with his life, not his death. The main point is very simple, and I will put it to you at once. Absolute ruin lies before him. Is he or is he not to embrace it?” He saw her start, and she lifted her face quickly, and turned it to him all quivering and unstrung from her recent suffering, and quite white. “He is in trouble!” she cried, low and breathlessly. “Oh, what is it? What has happened?” Dennis Falconer’s patience was approaching its limits, and he spoke curtly and conclusively. “I think we may dispense with this kind of thing,” he said. “It can serve no purpose, as everything is known. I come now from his mother with full power to act for her----” He was interrupted. A burning colour, the colour of such paralysing surprise as can take in hardly the bare statement, much less the consequent developements and inferences, had rushed suddenly over Clemence’s face, dyeing her very throat. “His mother!” she exclaimed. “His mother!” Her tone dropped as she repeated the words into a strange, uncertain murmur, in which incredulity, acceptance--as a kind of experiment--and something that was almost fear, were inextricably blended. The fear alone caught Falconer’s ear. His lips were parted to resume his speech with grim decisiveness in the conviction that she understood at last that nothing was to be gained by trifling with him, when she said, as though he had had nothing to do with her previous words: “Go on, please.” He looked at her again, and was struck by a new look in her face, as he had been struck by a new tone in her voice. She was evidently going to drop all theatricalities, he told himself.