The house was not spacious, but it was old--an Adams house--and one of the prettiest in London, for whatever had been done to it, after Adams, had been done with taste and discretion. Much of the furniture was of the same date as the house, and all that was more recent was precious after its kind, and had been bought when precious things were easier to buy than they are now. And Mrs. Rutherford was as perfect as her surroundings--a slim, pale woman, dressed in black, and wearing the same widow's cap which she had put on in sorrow and anguish fifteen years before--and which harmonised well with the long oval face and banded brown hair, lightly streaked with grey. She was a quiet person, and entertained few visitors except those of her own blood, or connections by marriage; but the name of those being legion, nobody called her inhospitable. Altogether she was a mother whom no well-bred son need be ashamed of loving. Once, upon his friend saying something to this effect, Claude had turned upon the man fiercely: "I should have loved her as well if she had been a beggar in the streets, and had hung about the doors of public-houses with me in her arms. To me she is not Mrs. Rutherford, but just the sweetest, tenderest mother on this earth--and she would have been the same if Fate had made her a beggar." "You believe that in your fantastic fits--but you know it ain't true," said his friend. * * * * * Mrs. Rutherford looked up with a radiant face when her son entered the room. She had heard his light step on the stair. He had a latchkey, and there was no other sound to announce his coming. "Am I late, mother?" "It is eight minutes past five." "And you have been watching the clock instead of taking your tea." The butler entered with the tea-pot as he spoke, having made the tea immediately upon hearing the hall door open. "What have you been doing with yourself this afternoon, dearest?" Mrs. Rutherford asked, looking up at him fondly, as he stood with his back to the mantelpiece, looking down at her. "Loafing as usual. I looked in at the New Gallery--their winter show began to-day--half a dozen grand things--the rest _croûtes_." "And then?" she asked gently, seeming sure there would be something else. "Then I walked up Regent Street--it was a fine bracing afternoon--from the Gallery to the 'Langham,' and along Portland Place." "And you had tea with Vera Provana?" "No--not tea. There is no tea worth tasting out of this room. There was a mob as usual at the Provanas'--and I slipped away." "Was Signor Provana there?" "Not he. He was last heard of in Vienna. But I believe he is coming home next week." "An unsatisfactory husband for a young thing like Vera," said Mrs. Rutherford, with a faint cloud on her thoughtful face. Claude knew that look of vague trouble. It was often on his mother's forehead when she spoke of Vera.