"I will be on your side, certainly," said Lady Gore; "but I don't know that that is the essential thing. I am not, after all, the person whose consent matters most." "Do you know, I believe you are," Rendel said. "I verily believe that at this moment you come before any one else in the world." There was no need to say in whose estimation, or to mention Rachel's name. "Well, perhaps at this moment, as you say," said Lady Gore, "it is possible, but there is no reason why it should go on always." "She is absolutely devoted to you," Rendel said. "Rachel has a fund," her mother said, "of loyal devotion, of unswerving affection, which makes her a very precious possession." "I have seen it," said Rendel. "Her devotion to you and her father is one of the most beautiful things in the world, even though...." "Even...?" said Lady Gore, with a smile. "Did she tell you what she said to me this morning?" "I gathered, yes," Lady Gore replied, "both what you had said and her answer." "I didn't take it as an answer," said Rendel. "I thought that I would come straight to you and ask you to help me, and that you would understand, as you always do, in the way that nobody else does." "Take care," said Lady Gore smiling, "that you don't blindly accept Rachel's view of her surroundings." "Oh, it is not only Rachel who has taught me that," said Rendel, his heart very full. "It is you yourself, and your sympathy. I wonder," he went on quickly, "if you know what it has meant to me? You see, it is not as if I had ever known anything of the sort before. To have had it all one's life, as your daughter has, must be something very wonderful. I don't wonder she does not want to give it up." Lady Gore tried to speak more lightly than she felt. "She need not give it up," she said, with a somewhat quivering smile. "And you need not thank me any more," she went on. "I should like you to know what a great interest and a great pleasure it has been to me that you should have cared to come and see me as you have done, and to take me into your life." Rendel was going to speak, but she went on. "I have never had a son of my own. It was a great disappointment to me at first; I was very anxious to have one. I used to think how he and I would have planned out his life together, and that he might perhaps do some of the things in the world that are worth doing. You see how foolish I was," she ended, with a tremulous little smile. Rendel, in spite of his gravity, experience and intuitive understanding, had a sudden and almost bewildering sense of a change of mental focus as he heard the wise, gentle adviser confiding in her turn, and confessing to foolish and unfulfilled illusions. He felt a passionate desire to be of use to her. "I should have been quite content if he had been like you," she said, and she held out her hand, which he instinctively raised to his lips. "You make me very happy," he said. "You make me hope."