I stammered and blushed. “I’m not sure――I think―― Wasn’t it mamma?” He turned away without answering. “Owen is waiting for you,” he said, as I still hung about nervously. “I suppose you won’t be in for tea?” “No,” I replied, and went out to my friend. “I’m sorry for keeping you,” I apologized; and as we walked round to Derryaghy I half thought of telling him of the incident. And my mother? I had known vaguely that she had been on the stage in some not particularly brilliant capacity, but somehow the real thing, in all its callous actuality, to have that suddenly thrust upon one, was very different. I did not like it. Visions of the girls I had seen in the pantomime kept rising before me with a disagreeable relevancy. They strutted before my mind’s eye just as they had strutted, jaunty and assured, about the stage, their eyes boldly seeking the male occupants of boxes. They swaggered by me with a peculiar movement of the hips, a perfect self-confidence; one of them even winked as she passed. And I saw their fat legs, their bold eyes; I heard them laugh, and sing idiotic songs, in shrill falsetto, about Bertie, and Charlie, and latch-keys, and staying out till three. I wished I had never found my mother’s portrait, though I tried to persuade myself that she only looked like that because she was dressed up for the theatre, and that in ordinary dress she must have been quite different. But my attempts to _see_ her as different failed. I had nothing to go upon, no memories, no other portrait; for me tights and doublet would remain her perpetual garb. I was not disillusioned, for I had had no illusions――that is to say, I had thought very little about the matter――but I was certainly shocked. I remembered Mrs. Carroll’s reserve on the few occasions when I had questioned her. Mrs. Carroll must have known, and so must Miss Dick. It was, doubtless, fortunate that I had never built up any imaginary and sentimental picture of my mother, as I might easily have done. Mrs. Carroll’s presence in my life probably had prevented this. “Here we are,” cried Owen, catching me by the arm. “Wake up. I suppose you don’t know that you’ve been fast asleep all the way!” We found Katherine at the lodge, talking to the gardener’s wife, a stout, ruddy young woman, with a flaxen-headed little fellow clutching her by the skirts, one of my father’s youthful scholars, or, more likely, one of Miss McWaters’, since he was still at the age when problems connected with “twice times” awaken bewildering difficulties. We stopped and joined in the conversation. “Isn’t your brother coming?” Owen asked, after a minute or two. “He said he was. He’s up at the house; he’s got some new music.” Katherine smiled at me. “Do you mind hurrying him up? It’s a shame to bother you, but if nobody fetches him he’ll never come.”