After dinner, too, the daily round was continued in all its dismal unreality. Philip even asked, an old and quite uninteresting joke, whether he might smoke in the drawing-room, and on Mrs. Home's saying "No!" threatened to go to the stables. It was never a good joke, or, indeed, anything approaching it, but to-night it came near to move tears on the poor lady's part, for it was like speaking of the odd little ways of some loved one who is dead. Then, again, in the drawing-room the table for cards was placed out, with decorous wax candles burning at the corners, and Mrs. Home sat in her usual seat, and as usual Philip drew a chair sideways near her, so that he could watch without seeming to watch. And his mother announced Miss Milligan, with the usual futile determination not to cheat. So in silence Miss Milligan pursued her abhorred way; and during that silence the tears, the break-down inevitable for all her brave resolves, came close to the surface. Mrs. Home already could not speak, she had to clench her teeth to prevent the sobs coming. Then at last there came a hitch, she cheated, and Philip saw it. "Black nine," he said; "not red nine." Mrs. Home's hands were already trembling, and at this they failed, and the cards were scattered over the table. "Oh, Philip!" she cried, "I can't bear it, I can't bear it. Oh, my darling! put your head on my lap as you used to do when you were a little boy and in trouble, and let me see if I cannot comfort you." She looked up at him with tear-dimmed eyes, and not till then did she fully know how deep the iron had gone. Not a sign of relenting or softening was there. He got up and spoke in a perfectly hard, dry voice. "Not one atom can you comfort me," he said. "We have both to bear what has to be borne, and as I have said, it is better to bear in silence. I think now I had better go; I have those matters to arrange to-night which I spoke to you of. Perhaps you would tell the servants that--that everything will go on just as usual here." Mrs. Home saw the hopelessness of further appeal just now. "Yes, dear, go and do what you have to," she said. "I will tell them. Will you come back to read prayers, Philip?" "No," said he. Then he bent and kissed her, and as he held her hands the first faint sign in the trembling of his lip showed that for her, at any rate, he was not all adamant. "I am not sorry for myself," he said, "but I am sorry for you, dear mother, that you cannot possibly help me. Breakfast as usual to-morrow? Good night." THIRTEENTH