‘Between people of our sober years such questions may be discussed--may they not?’ he said. ‘I wonder what _you_ think really? There is nothing I so much wish to know--not the conventional things that everybody says--but what _you_ think. You have been my other conscience for so long,’ he added, jesuitically, in order to conceal the cunning with which he was approaching the subject--asking for her opinion without specifying the subject on which he wanted it. But she saw through him, with a little amusement at the artifice employed. He wanted to know what she thought without asking her. Fortunately, the being asked was the thing _she_ wanted to avoid. But, just when they had got to this critical point, Edward came upstairs. He was not friendly, as he had been to his mother’s friend; he came in with the gloom upon his face, and a look of weariness. Mr. Beresford heard the door open with great impatience of the newcomer, whoever it might be. Nothing could be more inopportune. He wished Edward in Calcutta or wherever else it might be best for him to be on the other side of the seas. But, as for Mrs. Meredith, her attention fled on the moment to her boy. She forgot her friend and his questioning, and even the delicate position which she had realised, and the gravity of the relations which might ensue. All this went out of her mind in comparison with Edward’s fatigued look. She got up and went to him, putting her hand very tenderly upon his shoulder. ‘You have been working too long, dear. Oh, Edward, don’t be so anxious to get away from me! You are working as if this was your dearest wish in the world.’ ‘So it is,’ he said; ‘not to leave you, mother; but to feel that I am doing something, not merely learning or enjoying myself.’ ‘Edward is quite right,’ said Mr. Beresford. ‘It is by far the most worthy feeling for a young man.’ But Edward did not take this friendly support in a good spirit; he darted a half-savage glance at his backer-up. ‘Oh, if you take it in that light, that is not what I meant,’ he said. ‘I am not of that noble strain. It is not pure disinterestedness. I think it is a pity only to lose one’s advantages, and I should have some advantages of connection and that sort of thing. At least, I suppose so; and it is what is called a fine career.’ ‘Yes, it is a fine career.’ ‘If it is fine to separate yourself from all you care for in the world,’ cried Mrs. Meredith, ‘from all who care for you--not only must we be left behind, but when you have got beyond me, when you have a family of your own----’ ‘Which I never shall have, mother.’ ‘Nonsense! boys and girls say so, and end just like others; even your own, your very own must be taken from you. You must give up everything--and you call that a fine career.’ ‘Men do, if women don’t,’ said the young man, not looking at her. His heart was so wrung and sore that he could not keep the gloom off his face.