Of late indeed Ancoats had troubled himself very little about his guardian, or his guardian's anxieties. He seemed to have been devoting a large share of his mind to the avoidance of his mother's old friends; and the Maxwells, for months, in spite of many efforts on their part, had seen little or nothing of him. Maxwell for various reasons had begun to suspect a number of uncomfortable things with regard to the young fellow's friends and pleasures. Yet nothing could be taken hold of till this sudden emergence of a particular group of stories, coupling Ancoats's name with that of a notorious little actress whose adventures had already provided a certain class of newspaper with abundant copy. Then Maxwell, who cared personally very little for the red-haired youth himself, took alarm for the mother's sake. For in the case of Mrs. Allison a scandal of the kind suggested meant a tragedy. Her passion for her son was almost a tragedy already, so closely mingled in it were the feelings of the mother and those of the Christian, to whom "vice" is not an amusement, but an agony. * * * * * Yet, as Marcella said and felt, it was a hard fate that had forced Maxwell to concern himself with Ancoats's love-affairs at this particular moment. "Don't think of it," she said at last, urgently, as they walked along. "It is too bad; as if there were not enough!" Maxwell stood still, with a little smile, and put his arm round her shoulders. "Dear, I shall soon have time enough, probably, to think about Ancoats's affairs or anything else. Do you know that I was planning this morning what we would do when we go out? Shall we slip over to the Australian colonies in the autumn? I would give a good deal to see them for myself." She gave a low cry of pain. "Why are you so depressed to-night? Is there any fresh news?" "Yes. And, altogether, things look increasingly bad for us, and increasingly well for them. It will be extraordinarily close anyway--probably a matter of a vote or two." And he gave her a summary of his after-dinner conversation with Lord Cathedine, a keen ally of Fontenoy's in the Lords, and none the less a shrewd fellow because he happened to be also a detestable person. Marcella heard the news of one or two fresh defections from the Government with amazement and indignation. She stood there in the darkness, leaning against the man she loved, her heart beating fast and stormily. How could the world thus misconceive and thwart him? And what could she do? Her mind ran passionately through a hundred schemes, refusing to submit--to see him baffled and defeated. CHAPTER XII To Lord Ancoats himself this party of his mother's was an oppression and a nuisance. He had only been induced to preside over it with difficulty; and his mother had been both hurt and puzzled by his reluctance to play the host.