"You are a dear, good boy," she said fondly to him in the evening, when, with a book before him and his gloomy eyes fixed on the fire, he was sitting, dreading her observation of his countenance; "you are always so good in following your poor old mother's advice. I see you leave the Rivers girls alone. You must not overdo it, dear. If there is money--if it would not be an imprudence it would not be a bad thing, and then, you know, they might resent your having given them _quite_ up. Could you not keep friends without----" "Without what, mother?" he asked, in a hoarse voice which startled her a little. "I am hunting for a word, my dear," she answered candidly; "I want a word to express my meaning and that would not sound too strong." Paul laughed ironically. "Hunt on, mother, and when you have found the word you can tell me again." "It is so tiresome of you to laugh, but what I want to say is, that there would be no harm in your paying a certain amount of attention, always providing you did not _quite_ commit yourself." "And if the girl got fond of me," asked Paul, looking at her with glowing eyes, "what then, if I had not committed myself?" "My dear Paul! No well-brought-up girl would think of getting fond of you, would be in love with you, till you had said something. At least," said Lady Lyons, drawing herself up and looking very virtuous, "in my younger days girls would have thought it very wrong." "Now it strikes me, mother, that this idea of yours is very cold-blooded and cruel; does your love for me so blind you that you cannot see this?" "I am cold-blooded and cruel! Oh, Paul, what have I done," said the poor woman helplessly, "that you should call me bad names like this?" "I called your idea cruel and it is cruel," said Paul hotly, "you do not think of what you advise me to do. Heaven knows there is nothing in me to win a good girl's love, but you advise me to try and do so, and yet, while in act I am saying I love you and begging her to love me in return, I may feel free and be free because in _word_ I have said nothing. I call it shameful, mother!" He rose and walked hurriedly up and down the room, then, softening at the sight of her distress, he bent down and kissed her. "Forgive me if I seem harsh and unkind, but I am very unhappy, most miserable," and, sitting down again, he laid his face upon his arms. Poor Lady Lyons, living in her monotonous round of small duties, never excited or allowing any interest not touching her son to disturb her, was singularly perplexed. Something seemed, all at once, different. She and her son had frequently had differences of opinion, but he had, at those times, offended, and she had complained, and she had always been so glad to forgive him. Now suddenly he blamed her! She could not at once put herself into the new position. Her feeble mind, bounded entirely by her affection for her son, saw nothing outside this horizon.