George soothed her as best he could, and on his return home said tentatively to Letty, that he believed it would please his mother if they were to ask her to a small impromptu dinner of Parliamentary friends which they were planning for the following Friday. "George!" exclaimed Letty, her eyes gleaming, "we can't ask her! I don't want to say anything disagreeable, but you must see that people don't like her--her dress is so _extraordinary_, and her manners--it sets people against the house. I do think it's too bad that--" She turned aside with a sudden sob. George kissed her, and sympathised with her; for he himself was never at ease now for an instant while his mother was in the room. But the widening of the breach which Letty's refusal brought about only made his own position between the two women the more disagreeable to a man whose ideal of a home was that it should be a place of perpetual soothing and amusement. On the very morning of their departure for Castle Luton matters reached a small crisis. Letty, tired with some festivity of the night before, took her breakfast in bed; and George, going upstairs toward the middle of the morning to make some arrangement with her for the journey, found her just come down, and walking up and down the drawing-room, her pale pink dress sweeping the floor, her hands clasped behind her. She was very pale, and her small lips were tightly drawn. He looked at her with astonishment. "What is the matter, darling?" "Oh! nothing," said Letty, trying to speak with sarcasm. "Nothing at all. I have only just been listening to an account of the way in which your mother speaks of me to her friends. I ought to be flattered, of course, that she notices me at all! But I think I shall have to ask you to _request_ her to put off her visit to Ferth a little. It could hardly give either of us much enjoyment." George first pulled his moustaches, then tried, as usual, to banter or kiss her into composure. Above all, he desired not to know what Lady Tressady had said. But Letty was determined he should know. "She was heard "--she began passionately, holding him at arm's length--"she was heard saying to a _whole roomful_ of people yesterday, that I was 'pretty, of course--rather pretty--but _so_ second rate--and so provincial! It was such a pity dear George had not waited till he had been a few months in London. Still, of course, one could only make the best of it!'" Letty mimicked her mother-in-law's drawling voice, two red spots burning on either cheek the while, and her little fingers gripping George's arm. "I don't believe she ever said such things. Who told you so?" said George, stiffening, his arm dropping from her waist. Letty tossed her head. "Never mind! I _ought_ to know, and it doesn't really matter how I know. She _did_ say them."