* * * * "I've so wanted, so prayed, dear, that you might have a beautiful, lovely career," Fanshaw's mother was saying in a weak voice, her head swaying from side to side ever so little against the pillow. Fanshaw nodded and drew up his chair beside her's. Outside the window some barberries were very red against the snow in the thin twilight of the winter afternoon. Snow scene by Brueghel. "And really, dear, it must be admitted," went on Mrs. Macdougan with a little smile, "that you have done very well in the five years since you left college. You have made yourself beloved and respected, dear, in the walk of life you have chosen... Don't shake your head, you know it is true. Why Mrs. Appleby was telling me only yesterday how highly Mr. Appleby thought of your work under him. O, I was proud of you! And I shall be prouder yet, I know it, if I live long enough... Yes, I shall. O, dear boy, when I was raising you, and I had such trouble raising you, you were sickly, you know dear, like I am now... I used to think how you'd be big and strong and a comfort to me when I was old, just like you are. If God hadn't seen fit to try me with this affliction, how happy we would be together." "But, mother, you are going to get well, you know. This summer maybe we'll be able to go abroad." "Nice of you to say it, dearest.... Do you think you could make me a cup of tea? I'd so like a cup of tea. These afternoons are so long." "But, mother, you know you're not supposed to have tea." All the little wrinkles about her eyes and the corners of her mouth deepened. She patted her grey pompadour, that had slipped a little to one side of her head, with a querulous hand. "I didn't have any yesterday," she whined. "I'm so thirsty, Fanshaw." "All right, I'll get Susan to make some." When he came back from the kitchen, she said, her grey eyes wide, staring with excitement: "I was thinking, Fanshaw, supposing you married and some dreadful woman won you away from your poor mother; what should I do? You're so sweet to me; you take such care of me." Fanshaw turned red to the roots of his sandy hair. "Not much danger of that," he said stiffly. "We'll have a nice cup of tea in a minute, very weak, so that we shan't get too nervous, shan't we dear?" "I know it's so, Fanshaw. Some girl has got a hold on you. Don't trust her dear, don't trust her. Women are so wicked. She's after your social position or thinks you make a good salary... O, I'd die, I'd die if someone got you away from me." Mrs. Macdougan was sitting bolt upright in the chair, beating on her knees with little puffy hands. A wisp of grey hair had fallen down over her forehead, revealing a bit of the black rat under the pompadour. "They are such scheming creatures, so deceitful and wicked, and I so want you to have a beautiful career and be a comfort to me."