“Well! don’t you know they’re all that way when a man is tired. Nothing will keep him; and then he wants to throw a sop to something, maybe he thinks it’s his conscience, so he invents another man for the woman he’s left—if—if there isn’t one already.” “Millicent,” Cynthia stood up, and took the pretty, heavily ringed hand in hers, “do you think the second man will bring you anything better than the first? He never does—the only difference is he leaves you worse. Stick to your art and Launcelot!” Millicent tore her hands away. “Pshaw! you’re always talking about the child—I hate him!—there!—I hate him! I hated the pain, I hated being put aside, I hated having to spend my time on him—maybe if he hadn’t come Clifton would have been different; maybe other things would have been different too! As for my art, as you call it, what is art to a woman? Why, it’s nothing! you know it, Cynthia. If Leslie Damores hadn’t played the fool——” “Hush!” Cynthia stammered in a piteous attempt to hide the pain of his name. “Well, then! If a man wanted you, I’d like to know what pictures would mean? Pictures! I may be weak and silly—I know I am—I loved my husband. Yes! I did! I know I did. But if I can’t have him, I must have somebody. And you want me—to paint! Well! I’ll tell you. I wanted to please Clifton—so I painted. Now the Count doesn’t like the folks I mix with——” she bridled perceptibly, and Cynthia felt sick, “so I won’t paint any more.” She looked at the clock. Cynthia gazed at her desperately; she heard Launcelot’s voice in the next room. She had taught him “Sir Galahad,” and his voice rose in a triumphant shout at the last words, “All arm’d I ride, whate’er betide, until I find the Holy Grail!” “What are you going to do with the child?” she asked wearily. Millicent flushed. No woman is without the saving grace of feeling, through some chord, a touch of shame. “The Count,” she said, “says he’ll send him to school; he’s very kind.” “Very,” said Cynthia dryly. “He will send him to a French school, where he will grow into a second Count—it’s very kind of him. Millicent, if you have no other plan, will you give him to me?” “To you!” said Millicent—“to you?” She was astonished. She was, after all, his mother, and even where motherhood brings no love it keeps its sense of property. “Why, Cynthia, I don’t know as I _can_; you see, after all, I’m his mother! It’s very kind of you, Cynthia—but——” She looked again at the clock. “Look here!” said Cynthia suddenly, “I’m not going without the boy. You had better make up your mind to give him to me. You don’t want to ruin his life as well as your own, and if you don’t let me have him——” Cynthia’s eyes flashed. “He will be more in your way than ever now. I shall stay and—explain—to the Count!” she finished grimly. Millicent turned white.