"As often as I can I call for Consuello and take her to her home," he explained. "We are both so busy these days we have little other time in which to see each other. I'm glad I saw you this afternoon, Gallant, and you may want to know that it won't be long before I'll have some more real news for you." As the automobile carried them toward his home, John thanked Consuello again for having invited him to the studio. "I don't believe I would have discovered that you are Jean Hope for a long time," he said. "From now on I'll never miss one of your pictures." "I have yet to view with complacency the scenes in which she is in the arms of another man," laughed Gibson. After dinner that night he led his mother to the porch, telling her he had news for her. He was glad that he was able to answer her questions concerning Consuello, although he believed the unpleasant occurrence of a few nights before was completely a thing of the past, to be forgotten. "Mother," he said, smiling, "I discovered today what keeps Miss Carrillo in the city during the week." Mrs. Gallant regarded him expectantly. "You did?" "Yes, she is working." Mrs. Gallant smiled, as though the information given her by her son relieved a hidden anxiety. "And what does she do?" she asked. "She is in pictures," he answered. The smile faded from Mrs. Gallant's face. "In pictures!" she exclaimed. "Then she is an----" "An actress," he supplied. "She invited me out to her studio and told me all about how it was while we had tea in her dressing room. Why, mother! What's the matter? Mother!" Mrs. Gallant had risen from her chair, a strange, disconsolate expression upon her face, and had gone back into the house. CHAPTER XI Astonished even more than he had been when she first questioned the propriety of Consuello's living alone in the city, John hurried into the house after his mother and found her in a chair beside a table in the living room, her head buried in her arms. "Mother!" he exclaimed, anxiously. "What is wrong? Are you ill? Don't, mother, don't cry. Speak to me, speak to me." She did not answer. He stepped forward quickly and lifted her face between his hands, tenderly. He saw that her eyes were filled with tears. "Please," she said, drawing back her head. He dropped his arms to his sides. "Please, I must be alone," she said. "Tell me, tell me, what is it?" he begged. Rising a trifle unsteadily to her feet she walked past him to the door. He wheeled as she was about to step out of the room and caught her in his arms. "Mother, dearest," he pleaded, "what is it? Is it because you do not approve? Is it so terrible that she must work to live and that she plays in pictures? Surely, you can't think wrong of her?" Slowly she nodded her head. He stepped back in amazement. How could she possibly think such things? "I had hoped, because she was a friend of yours, that she would be what you thought her," Mrs. Gallant said, tremulously.