She put down her cup with a sigh, intended as a reproach to George. George only buried himself the deeper in his morning's letters. Mrs. Watton, behind her newspaper, glanced grimly from the mother to the son. "I wonder if that woman has a single real old friend in the world. How is George Tressady going to put up with her?" The Wattons themselves had been on friendly terms with Tressady's father for many years. Since Sir William's death and George's absence, however, Mrs. Watton had not troubled herself much about Lady Tressady, in which she believed she was only following suit with the rest of West Mercia. But now that George had reappeared as a promising politician, his mother--till he married--had to be to some extent accepted along with him. Mrs. Watton accordingly had thought it her duty to invite her for the election, not without an active sense of martyrdom. "She always has bored me to tears since I first saw Sir William trailing her about," she would remark to Letty. "Where did he pick her up? The marvel is that she has kept respectable. She has never looked it. I always feel inclined to ask her at breakfast why she dresses for dinner twelve hours too soon!" Very soon after the little conversation about the Corfields Lady Tressady withdrew to her room, sat thoughtful for a while, with her writing-block on her knee, then wrote a letter. She was perfectly aware of the fact that since George had come back to her she was likely to be welcome once more in many houses that for years had shown no particular desire to receive her. She took the situation very easily. It was seldom her way to be bitter. She was only determined to amuse herself, to enjoy her life in her own way. If people disapproved of her, she thought them fools, but it did not prevent her from trying to make it up with them next day, if she saw an opening and it seemed worth while. "There!" she said to herself as she sealed the letter, and looked at it with admiration, "I really have a knack for doing those things. I should think Aspasia Corfield would ask him by return--me, too, if she has any decency, though she _has_ dropped me for fifteen years. She has a tribe of daughters.--_Why_ I should play Miss Sewell's game like this I don't know! Well, one must try something." That same afternoon mother and son took their departure for Ferth Place. George, who had only spent a few weeks at Ferth since his return from India, should have found plenty to do both indoors and out. The house struck him as singularly dingy and out of order. Changes were imperatively demanded in the garden and in the estate. His business as a colliery-owner was in a tangled and critical condition. And meanwhile Fontenoy plied him incessantly with a political correspondence which of itself made large demands upon intelligence and energy.