Under the table, Lady Pomfret gently pressed her son’s foot. Wisely, he attempted no defence of the parson. The Squire recovered his good humour with a second rasher of home-cured bacon. As he rose from the table, he smiled genially at wife and son. “I spoke my mind just now, the more strongly because I have to suppress such feelings. It comes to this, Lionel, when a fellow is making sacrifices, when he is paring down expenses right and left, when he is doing his damndest to ‘carry on,’ it is exasperating to be pestered for the extra inch when you have cheerfully given the ell.” He blew his nose with violence and left the dining-room. “Dear fellow!” murmured Lady Pomfret. “He has been horribly worried during the last four years.” Lionel looked and felt dazed. He supposed that Lady Pomfret invariably sided with her husband. Not out of any insincerity or moral weakness, but because she was of his generation and shared his views which were in all honesty focussed upon his duties and responsibilities. As much could be said of Hamlin. Lionel’s mind remained quite clear on this point. What confused and distressed him was the sudden realisation of cheese-paring, of sacrifice, of anxieties which he had ignored till this moment. “Then it is true,” he murmured. “What is true, my dear?” “That we are much less well off than I had ever suspected.” “I am afraid that is true, Lionel.” “Surely you know, mother?” “Not everything.” “Good Lord!” “The mortgage has always eaten into his peace of mind.” “The mortgage? I never knew there was a mortgage.” “That is why I sit with my back to the portrait of your great-grandfather.” She explained matters to a wondering son. He listened impatiently, tapping the carpet with his foot, irritated perhaps unduly because of his own ignorance and impotence. When Lady Pomfret had finished, he tried, for her sake, to speak lightly— “If I had known all this, mother, I might have helped him.” “How?” “I could have worried along on a less generous allowance. As it is——!” He broke off, with a gesture. She reassured him gently: “Your father put you into a good regiment, and he has allowed you what he decided was necessary. If you asked him to give you less, he would refuse.” Lionel exhibited a trace of his father’s obstinacy. “We shall see about that,” he muttered. Then he kissed her tenderly, stroking her delicate hand. “It has been beastly for both of you. And you two have always looked so comfy and prosperous.” Lady Pomfret laughed. “Call us mummers, Lionel. We have been forced to keep up appearances. Most of our friends are in the same boat. I see the comic side of it all and the tragic.” Lionel smoked an after-breakfast pipe alone. Tobacco, however, failed to soothe him.