"How like a woman! They have to unburden to their friends about everything. What's the good of unburdening?" "Jack, you are such a pig--so am I; that is why we are friends. But, anyhow, I can see what a pearl she is. Sometimes I've half a mind to finish with the whole affair. Marie makes----" He turned on her fiercely. "You don't dare," he said. "My good man, it is no use storming. You get your way in the world, I allow, for somehow or other most people are afraid of you. But if you think I am, you are stupendously mistaken. To resume--half a mind, I said. When I have the whole mind you shall be instantly told. I am scrupulously fair in such matters, and I recognise the justice of your knowing first." She got up as she spoke. "I shall now go home," she said. He laid his hand on her arm. "No, don't go yet, Mildred," he said. "And I wish to Heaven you would not say such horrible things. But never mind that: you don't mean it. Sit down again." She laughed. "I mean every word," she said, "also that I must go. Come; Andrew is sure to be playing Bridge. You can just drive me home. I will leave the carriage for him." Jack rose also. "Won't he look for you?" he asked. "Not for long, and then he will play some more Bridge." CHAPTER V Mrs. Brereton, among her many other moral hallucinations, was in the constant habit of remembering that she was an excellent mother, and that, next to her own affairs, it was highly probable that among all others she took most thought for those of her daughter. Consequently, on the afternoon following the Maxwell entertainment she determined to devote herself to Maud and her prospects, and with that end in view drove down with her in a space-annihilating motor-car to their house just above Windsor, in order both to talk with her by the way, and when arrived there see that things were in order for the week-end party that they were giving on Saturday. The summer weather which had begun with such splendour a week ago had by an unparalleled effort kept itself up, and seven days of sunshine had brought out a wealth of fresh green leaf on the trees, in London still varnished and undimmed by dust, and in the country of an exquisite verdure. Overhead the sun was set in a sky of divine purity, and the swift motion through the air she felt to be quite as exhilarating to the senses as would have been the afternoon party to which, had not duty called, she would otherwise have gone. She had never wished to have a daughter, and the abandonment of this party reminded her how often she was sacrificing herself to Maud. Indeed, she seemed to herself a most excellent mother.