‘Oh, are you? Who may he be?’ ‘She is Helena Spenceley, a very great favourite of mine. If my son will spend all his time away from home, I am obliged to find some kind of a substitute, you know. She has been almost like a daughter to me.’ ‘Any relative of the young man who recently distinguished himself by earning a thrashing?’ Mrs. Mallory looked annoyed. ‘He is her brother,’ said she coldly. ‘He is away from home now. You must not judge Helena by him. Poor girl! She has a sad, unhappy home. I believe I really have been a friend to her. And I like to see young people about me.’ ‘Yes, of course.’ ‘I hope you have no engagement?’ ‘None at all. I shall be delighted to make Miss Spenceley’s acquaintance.’ She retired, after casting a comprehensive glance around at the papers which strewed the table. CHAPTER XIV. THE TWO RADICALS. Mrs. Mallory came into her drawing-room twenty minutes before the dinner-hour, and found her son already there, alone, already dressed, and stretched, in an attitude of extreme laziness, in an arm-chair by the fire. There was likeness between the mother and son--strong likeness; and there was also, what most people forget in comparing relations with one another, strong unlikeness. Mrs. Mallory was an elegant-looking and a young-looking woman. She had an impassive, pale face, with thin lips and a high nose; pale, flaxen hair, without a grey streak in its glossy abundance; and the elegant trifle of lace and feathers which she wore upon it made her look still younger and handsomer. She was dressed in pale lavender silk and white lace, and she looked a very handsome, prosperous person, as she came in, casting a glance at Sebastian--a sharp, keen, calculating glance. Mrs. Mallory loved power, and had long exercised it; she did not realise that her son had grown from a boy into a man since she had known him. She had the lowest possible opinion of the natural penetration of men; and circumstances had fostered that impression. There is a great deal in having once lived for a term of years in close intercourse with a person very decidedly one’s inferior in intellect, as in the case of Mrs. Mallory and her late husband. There is nothing like it for giving one an overweening idea of one’s own capacities, and for fostering an attitude of contemptuous tolerance towards the opinions of every one else. Mrs. Mallory’s experience of her husband had entailed, as one of its indirect sequences, that she was completely deceived now by the lazy, languid manner of her son. In this most agreeable of convictions, that of mental supremacy over the rest of the company, let her tranquilly abide, until her hour of disillusion arrives. ‘Mother, it is too absurd that I should have to go about representing myself as your son! Couldn’t you pass as my sister?’ ‘Nonsense! Where is your friend?’ ‘Dressing, I suppose. He was greatly excited at hearing that a young lady was expected to dine with us.’