"Perhaps you could do it, by law," said Mrs. Brent. "I don’t know anything about the law, except what you’ve told me. Perhaps you could and perhaps you couldn’t. But there’s one thing you can’t do, and that’s take away my child’s love for me, though I dare say you’d like to do that too. You don’t suppose that if I went away and came back here and you had me turned away from the door, you wouldn’t hear something about it from him. You don’t suppose that, do you? He’s pretty near a man now. You’re his guardian till he comes of age; I know that you had yourself made so by the law, and I didn’t make any objection; you told me it was best for him, and I believed you. But you’d find it wasn’t all a question of law if you tried any game of that sort. I don’t know what Harry would do, but I do know that whatever he did it wouldn’t suit your book." Lady Brent had listened to this speech without showing the smallest sign of discomposure, but her light blue eyes were hard and cold as she said: "There is a good deal of truth in what you say. Your going away would completely upset everything that has been done during the last eighteen years for Harry’s benefit. Both you and I have made sacrifices on his behalf. We agreed to do so when you came here before he was born. I have kept strictly to the bargain. I should not, for my own pleasure, live the retired life that I do here, all the year round, with you as my constant companion. For my own sake I should be immensely relieved to say good-bye to you for a time, if it were possible." "Yes, that’s the sort of nasty thing you say." "Isn’t it exactly what you say to me? Why should you suppose your society is any more gratification to me than mine is to you?" "I wish to goodness you would say good-bye to me, then, for a time. Why isn’t it possible? It is possible. I tell you I’m going, and I’m coming back." "Do you remember anything at all about the bargain we struck when you first came here, or have you forgotten it entirely, after nearly eighteen years, as you say?" "Of course I remember it. You didn’t mince your words then any more than you do now. You made me feel that I was dirt beneath your feet, but you’d put up with me for the sake of preventing my boy—if it was to be a boy—doing what his father had done, and marrying somebody he loved, if you didn’t think she was good enough for him." "You can put it like that if it pleases you. You consented to everything. You yourself wanted the child brought up with nothing to remind him that on one side his birth wasn’t suited to his long ancestry on the other. I warned you what the sacrifice would be. It meant giving up your own people, for one thing, and you gladly consented to do that. It meant your doing your utmost to fill the position that I freely offered you here." "So I have done my utmost."