“But I’m not willing,” she resumed, after another short pause. “I’ve told you--I don’t want a woman’s privilege to act like a brute and be treated like a spoiled child afterwards. Besides, there are many other things. If what I thought had been true, I should never have allowed myself to act as I did. I ought to have been kind to you, even if you had been perfectly helpless. I know you’re wild, and drink too much sometimes. You have the strength to stop it if you choose, and you’ve been trying to since Monday. You’ve said nothing, and I’ve not watched you, but I’ve been conscious of it. But it’s not your fault if you have the tendency to it. Your father drank very hard sometimes, but he had a different constitution. It shortened his life, but it never seemed to affect him outwardly. I’m conscious--to my shame--that I didn’t discourage him, and that when I was young and foolish I was proud of him because he could take more than all the other officers and never show it. Men drank more in those days. It was not so long after the war. But you’re a nervous man, and your father wasn’t, and you have his taste for it without that sort of quiet, phlegmatic, strong, sailor’s nature that he had. So it’s not your fault. Perhaps I should have frightened you about it when you were a boy. I don’t know. I’ve made mistakes in my life.” “Not many, mother dear.” “Well--I’ve made a great one now, at all events. I’m not going back over anything I’ve said already. It’s the future I’m thinking of. I can’t do much, but I can manage a ‘modus vivendi’ for us--” “But why--” “Don’t interrupt me, dear! I’ve made up my mind what to do. All I want of you now, is your advice as a man, about the way of doing it. Listen to me, Jack. After what has happened between us--no matter how it turns out afterwards, for we can’t foresee that--it’s impossible that we should go on living as we’ve lived since your father died. I don’t mean that we must part, unless you want to leave me, as you would have a perfect right to do.” “Mother!” “Jack--if I were your brother, instead of your mother--still more, if I were any other relation--would you be willing to depend for the rest of your life on him, or on any one who had treated you as I treated you last night?” She paused for an answer, but John Ralston was silent. With his character, he knew that she was quite right, and that nothing in the world could have induced him to accept such a situation. “Answer me, please, dear,” she said, and waited again. “Mother--you know! Why should I say it?” “You would refuse to be dependent any longer on such a person?” “Well--yes--since you insist upon my saying it,” answered John, reluctantly. “But with you, it’s--”