"Yes, and I advised you not to go," said Mrs. Prymmer, squeezing her lips together. "'The way of transgressors is hard.'" "You advised me not to go because you knew nothing of the circumstances. You know that I cannot give you the details of my business transactions. Can't you trust me to do what is right in such cases?" "Put not your trust in princes," she said, stubbornly. "A man should have no secrets from his mother." "You forget that I am not a boy," he said, calmly. Then he went on, "I hurried to California and found Mr. Lancaster in a seaside place sitting in the sun parlour of a hotel. He was pleased that I had come so quickly, and talked over his affairs with me--" "It's a very odd thing," interrupted Mrs. Prymmer, "that a man who has travelled as much as this Mr. Lancaster of yours should do all his business in a little place like this. Why doesn't he go to banks in New York or Boston?" "He probably knows his own mind," said Justin, with an unmoved face. "That day I did some writing for him, then he looked out the window. There was a long beach where a small number of young people were bathing in the surf. Mr. Lancaster said, 'You have never met my daughter,--come out, and I will introduce you. The bathing season has not begun, but she often gets up a party in the spirit of adventure.' We went outside, and when he called, 'Derrice,' one of the bathers came toward us. I saw that she was a pretty girl--" "Well--" said Mrs. Prymmer, in an icy voice. Her son had paused; it was intensely distasteful to him to give her this account of his journey, and he was only urged to it by a strict sense of duty. But not for worlds would he describe to her or to any one living his sensations on first meeting the girl who had become his wife. Through half-shut eyes he gazed at his mother, his memory busy recalling the scene on the California beach,--the dripping, glistening sea-nymph dancing over the sands in her short frock and black stockings, her face radiant, her teeth shining, her slender feet spurning the ground, her whole being so instinct with life and happiness that she seemed to be an incarnation of perpetual grace and motion. She danced to meet him and he--stiff, awkward--had stood motionless, struck with admiration, his whole soul for the first time prostrate before feminine graces and perfection.