But Oliver was again speaking, in a low, preoccupied voice. "Perhaps we have not been wise, you and I, in having so--so"--his lips sought to frame suitable words--"so charming a girl," he said at last, "constantly about the house. I have certainly become fond of Lucy--in fact, I think I may acknowledge to you, mother, that she is my ideal of what a girl should be." How odd, how inadequate, how priggish his words sounded to himself! Still he went on, with gathering courage, "But no one knows better than you do how I am situated. For what I am pleased to call my political ambitions, you have already made sacrifices. If I am to do what I wish with my life, such a marriage--indeed, any marriage, for years to come--would be for me quite out of the question. It would mean the condemnation of myself to such a life as that I am now leading, and I do not feel--perhaps I ought to be ashamed of not feeling--that my attraction to Miss Kemp is so strong as to make me desirous of giving up all I have striven for." Mrs. Boringdon made no reply. She still stared on into the fire; a curious look, one of perplexity and hesitation, had come over her face. "Mother!" he cried, and the tone forced her to look round at him, "surely you don't think--it is not your impression that Lucy----" "I think she has become very fond of you," said Mrs. Boringdon deliberately. "But I confess that I have sometimes thought that she seemed fonder of me than of you." She smiled as she spoke, but to Boringdon this was no smiling matter--indeed, it was one which to his mind could scarcely be discussed with decency by himself and his mother. Then a vision of Lucy Kemp, steady, clear-eyed Lucy, almost too sensible--so the people at Chancton, he knew, regarded her to be--came to his help. "No, no," he said, with a sudden sense of relief, "I'm quite sure, mother, that any feeling--I mean the kind of feeling of which we are speaking--has been entirely on my side! We will be more careful. I am willing to admit that I have been foolish." But Mrs. Boringdon scarcely heard what he was saying. She who so seldom doubted as to her course of action, was now weighing the pros and cons of what had become to her a matter for immediate decision. Unfortunately her son's next words seemed to give her the opening she sought.