"Yes. She caught me just after luncheon, and we talked for an hour." "Poor darling! I ought to have been there to protect you. But she vowed she would have her say about that house." He looked down upon her, trying to see her expression in the shifting light. He had gone through a disagreeable little scene with his mother at breakfast. She had actually lectured him on the rashness of taking the Brook Street house!--he understanding the whole time that what the odd performance really meant was, that if he took it he would have a smaller margin of income wherefrom to supplement her allowance. "Oh, it was all right!" said Letty, composedly. "She declared we should get into difficulties at once, that I could have no idea of the value of money, that you always _had_ been extravagant, that everybody would be astonished at our doing such a thing, etcetera, etcetera. I _think_--you don't mind?--I think she cried a little. But she wasn't really very unhappy." "What did you say?" "Well, I suggested that when we were married, we and she should both set up account-books; and I promised faithfully that if she would let us see hers, we would let her see ours." George threw back his head with a gurgle of laughter. "Well?" "She was afraid," said Letty, demurely, "that I didn't take things seriously enough. Then I asked her to come and see my gowns." "And that, I suppose, appeased her?" "Not at all. She turned up her nose at everything, by way of punishing me. You see, she had on a new-Worth--the third since Christmas. My poor little trousseau rags had no chance." "H'm!" said George, meditatively. "I wonder how my mamma is going to manage when we are married," he added, after a pause. Letty made no reply. She was walking firmly and briskly; her eyes, full of a sparkling decision, looked straight before her; her little mouth was close set. Meanwhile through George's mind there passed a number of fragmentary answers to his own question. His feeling towards his mother was wholly abnormal; he had no sense of any unseemliness in the conversation about her which was gradually growing common between himself and Letty; and he meant to draw strict lines in the future. At the same time, there was the tie of old habit, and of that uneasy and unwelcome responsibility with regard to her which had descended upon him at the time of his father's death. He could not honestly regard himself as an affectionate son; but the filial relationship, even in its most imperfect aspect, has a way of imposing itself. "Ah, well! I daresay we shall pull through," he said, dismissing the familiar worry with a long breath. "Why, how far we have come!" he added, looking back at Charing Cross and the Westminster towers. "And how extraordinarily mild it is! We can't turn back yet, and you'll be tired if I race you on in this way. Look, Letty, there's a seat! Would you be afraid--just five minutes?" Letty looked doubtful.