She had loved her child with a passion tiresome to all those about her. She had been absorbed in him; she had seen in this little boy not alone her only child, but her only friend, a fellow countryman in a hostile land. And now he was gone. "She’s charming," Mrs. Russell repeated; "but I should never have picked her out for Vincent. She’s not the sort of woman to hold him. He’s so odd, you know. He always used to say that he’d never marry, and that he was looking for the perfect woman, whatever he fancied a perfect woman was. I don’t know what it was he saw in Polly. She’s not beautiful, or fascinating, as far as I can see. Of course, there’s her voice. It’s lovely, but still---- He met her at some sort of tea, he told me, and he said that he was enchanted by the sight of her, sitting there in her plain dark blue suit, with her hands folded, so quiet and clever, you know, in comparison with all the other women. I must admit I was disappointed." She paused for a few minutes, to rub her big square nails with pink paste. When she began to talk again, she had unaccountably changed her point of view. Instead of her bland contempt for Polly, she had, somehow, within her queer soul developed a great indignation against her son. "He has behaved abominably," she said, with a frown. "I can’t understand him. For days at a time he doesn’t speak to her; doesn’t even see her. And all for nothing! He took her up in a caprice, and he’s dropped her in another caprice. Do you know, my dear, all the time their child was so ill, he wouldn’t see it? He said he could do nothing to help it, and he couldn’t bear to look at suffering. And at last, when it died, the thing became so scandalous that Eddie had to go and actually force him to come into its room. So he came sauntering in, and what do you think he said? ‘Thank God I really hadn’t had time to grow attached to it yet.’" "That was pretty bad," said Angelica. But she was more curious than shocked; she was eager to hear more about this atrocious Vincent. "And now," went on Mrs. Russell, "whenever the poor soul begins to practise, he comes stamping out of his room and shouts down the stairs, ‘Stop! Stop! For God’s sake, stop!’" "He must be pretty selfish!" "Selfish! That’s not the word. He squeezes every one dry. He bothered me a while ago until I sold one of my rings to get money for him; and as soon as I’d handed him the money he walked out of the room without even saying, ‘Thank you.’ And when I tried to speak to him, he didn’t even stop; just called back to me, ‘I’m not in the mood for your conversation to-day. I couldn’t endure it.’ He’s a devil!"