‘It’s hard, isn’t it?’ said Leo; ‘but I will try as much as I can.’ He got up to open the door for her (for by this time they had reached the cottage), which was a thing Mab hated, feeling the attention very right for her mother, but a sort of mockery in the case of a little girl like herself. She submitted with her head bent; and then bolted like a young colt, which she still was. It must be allowed that the young man, who, according to all laws, ought to have preferred her company, was relieved when she was gone. He came quickly back to where Lady William sat, her head bowed upon her hand in much thought, and drew a low chair, Mab’s little baby-chair, to her feet. ‘I have a counter proposition to make,’ he said, lightly touching her hand to draw her attention. She smiled, and said, ‘What is that?’ with a friendly indifference which made him frown. It was very clear that his proposition, whatever it might be, awakened no excitement, scarcely even curiosity, in Lady William’s breast. He made a very long pause indeed, but she took no notice until there had been time for various tumults and revolutions of thought in his mind. Then she looked up, with a little start, to see him in an attitude which was strangely like supplication, though he was in reality only seated in the low chair. ‘Well,’ she said, in her easy tone, ‘what is it? You keep me a long time in suspense.’ ‘It was--nothing,’ he said. ‘Ah,’ said Lady William, with a laugh, ‘you pay me back in my own coin.’ ‘Rather,’ he said in a changed tone, ‘let us say that it was this. We must, I suppose, go to London next month--though my mother does not seem to care for it now as I thought she would. However, we shall go; and why should not you come too? Come with us; take Miss Mab where you please, and come back when you please. It would obviate all the difficulties you were speaking of, and secure all the---- What! You will not listen to such a simple suggestion as that?’ There had been a great many exclamations on Lady William’s lips as he went on, but she had smothered them one by one till it was impossible to keep silence longer. ‘With your mother?’ she said, almost under her breath. ‘Well: I should like it, oh, a great deal better, if it were with me; but you think of me as if I were a cabbage, and my mother was your friend--was she not your friend?--and I am your servant--to mount behind your carriage, if you like.’ ‘Do not speak nonsense, Leo; you are my very kind friend, and the greatest acquisition, and if you had been going to town with your wife instead of your mother---- It is not indispensable, don’t you know, that old friends should continue friends for ever. Your mother was very good to me once--that is, I believe, for a time: but it would do no good to go into those old questions. She would not suffer me with her, nor would I---- No, no; forgive me. That does not mean necessarily any harm, does it? that we do not now--see things--exactly in the same light----’