In saying this the poor mother spoke quite sincerely. In spite of Alistair’s disclaimer, in spite of her own experience with him in the past, she could not bring herself to forego the mother’s consolation of laying her darling’s sins upon another’s shoulders. In the eyes of a true mother the whole world is full of wicked men and women busied in laying snares for the destruction of her child; she never deems it possible that her child may be himself the tempter of others. Hero did not doubt that the Duchess spoke perfect truth. What woman likes to think that another woman’s influence is otherwise than hurtful to a man in whom she is interested? “I am sure of it,” Miss Vanbrugh said with conviction. “But perhaps what has happened”--they both shrank from the word “bankruptcy”--“may be the best thing in the end, if it compels him to leave her.” The Duchess shook her head despondently. “I hardly know what will happen yet. I hinted that his brother might come to his help if he would give up his present life, and he refused. Do you know what I am actually afraid of? I believe that woman is scheming to make him marry her!” Hero Vanbrugh was as much shocked by this suggestion as the Duchess could have desired. Her training had not been severely Puritanical, but an instinct older than copybooks and Sunday schools taught her to look on Molly Finucane as her natural enemy. Such women as Molly were traitors to their sex; they were the blacklegs of the feminine trades-union. The wage which the others had worked from time immemorial to establish--honour, a home, the half of all a man’s possessions, and the chief place in his life--all this the free-lance had foregone, to snatch the miserable gains of adventure. The announcement that lunch was on the table did not interrupt the conversation. But it added another interlocutor in the person of the Duke of Trent. The new Minister had passed a busy morning at the Home Office. His first care had been to send for his solicitor, to consult him about Lord Alistair’s affairs. The lawyer told him that, though the nominal amount of his brother’s indebtedness was not less than fifty thousand pounds, the creditors would probably be willing to accept one-half to cancel the proceedings. Twenty-five thousand was a large sum to a man circumstanced as the Duke was; nevertheless, he had made up his mind that it should be forthcoming, and he had instructed the solicitor to open the negotiations on his behalf. The most important item of official business had been a call from the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who reported a fresh piece of hooligan violence from the neighbourhood of Bermondsey. A policeman was again the victim, and the Force were beginning to show a dangerous temper, and to demand permission to carry revolvers for their own protection.