“So do I. Can you doubt that?” “No, no. But father——! I have burnt all my boats just when I most needed them. I meant to go slow, to break my news considerately. I have behaved like a madman, irritated and offended him past forgiveness.” He may have hoped that she would deny this. No comforting word dropped from her lips. Never had he seen her face so troubled. “Have you nothing to say?” he burst out. She answered gently: “You mustn’t hurry me, Lionel. I stand between my husband and my son. I have a duty to each. I tell you this—in small things I can and do influence your father. Dear old Ben can say as much. In Matters which touch deeply his pride, his ambition, his inherited instincts and sensibilities, my influence is—negligible. All my life I have known this; all my life I have prayed that no issue might arise between us which would provoke me to—to fight against those instincts, so strong in him, so ineradicable.” “And I have raised that issue.” It was a bitter moment for the young man. Glancing keenly at his mother, he perceived her delicacy, her physical frailty. From her he had inherited a like weakness, which a healthy, sane life had almost eliminated. But he remembered long weary days and sleepless nights when he had suffered grievously from actual incapacity to do things done by strong young men. At Eton he had not been allowed to play football. Later, a long day’s hunting tired him terribly. The work at Sandhurst, digging trenches, making bridges, route marches, caused him distress. Perhaps these physical lesions had strengthened his spirit and aroused his sympathy. Any loss implies some gain. And if the present moment was bitter, knowing, as he did, that he was inflicting cruel anxiety upon a mother ill able to bear it, such bitterness may be well deemed trivial compared to that immeasurable and inexpiable remorse which tears the hearts of strong men, when they realise that the sympathy and tenderness long overdue to some beloved creature has been aroused too late, when the kind familiar tones are hushed for ever. Lady Pomfret assented. “I shall have to fight for you, Lionel.” “Darling mother, can’t you keep out of it?” “Quite impossible.” Lionel got up and paced the room, a small room adjoining Lady Pomfret’s bedroom, much used by her, full of objects which vividly recalled to Lionel his childhood and youth. A tiny chair in which he had sat learning to “read without tears” stood in its old place. In one of the dwarf book-cases were a row of children’s books. Photographs of himself at all ages met his eye. Presently he burst out, as she sat thinking before him: “Father simply can’t resist you.”