There was the slightest little pause before Mrs. Grant replied. "Why do you hate her? I can understand your wanting to get away sometimes; but she always seems to me to treat you nicely; and of course she is extremely nice to us. I should be sorry to quarrel with her in any way." "No doubt you would," said Mrs. Brent drily. "You’d get the rough side of her tongue pretty quick, and you wouldn’t forget it in a hurry." Mrs. Grant was a little shocked. This new plain-spoken Mrs. Brent was more of a personage than the carefully behaved lady always anxious to be making a good impression that she had hitherto appeared; but she seemed out of the Royd picture—and all the more so if Harry and not Lady Brent were regarded as its central figure. The suggestion of Lady Brent as a virago was also rather startling. "Oh, I don’t mean to say that she’d use bad language," said Mrs. Brent, in reply to some demur. "That’s not her little way. I won’t tell you what her little way is, but she’s always the _lady_. I’m not, you see. That’s what’s the matter with me. I’m Lottie Lansdowne, who danced on the stage, and never allowed to forget it, though you can tell of yourself, since you’ve been here, that I’ve _tried_ hard enough to play the game—for Harry’s sake, I have—and been at it for the last seventeen years; and now I’m getting a bit sick of it." She was in tears, and Mrs. Grant felt a strong emotion of pity towards her. She leant forward. "My dear," she said, "I think it’s splendid the way you sink yourself for Harry’s sake. You mustn’t give up doing it, you know. It has paid—hasn’t it?—to have him brought up here, out of the world, in the way that you and Lady Brent have done. He’s the dearest boy. _I_ consider that you have had more to do with the success of it than she has. He loves you more, for one thing; and if he sees you living here as if you belonged to it all——" "Oh, I know," said Mrs. Brent, drying her eyes. "I made up my mind about that years ago, and I’m not going back on it. I suppose when he gets older and begins to see things for himself, he’ll see that I _don’t_ really belong. I’ve got that before me, you know. _She_ knows it too, and of course doesn’t care. It’ll suit her. _She’ll_ come out all right, but I shan’t. The only thing is that he does love me, and he can’t really love her. I don’t see how anybody could. I’m glad you said that. I love you for saying it. I can talk to you, and I’m sure it’s a relief to talk to somebody. There’s Wilbraham, but he’s as much up against her now as I am; we only make each other worse. You do think it’s all right so far, don’t you? With Harry, I mean. He couldn’t be nicer than he is, if his mother had been born a lady. Of course I wasn’t, whatever I may pretend. I haven’t got in the way, have I? She can’t bring that up against me." "Oh, no! Oh, no! You mustn’t think that. You’re part of it all to him. I said that and I meant it."