"Quite usual. She generally goes with Mr. Aix, but to-night Aunt Gerty has gone with them." "Chaperons them, eh?" I didn't like to hear him call Mother and Mr. Aix _them_ in that insulting bracketting way, so I said-- "Mother has stayed in all her life. She wanted a change." "Aix?" said he, "for a change! God!" "She's collaborating with Mr. Aix." "Damn him and his play too." "Oh, not his play, George. Mother would be _so_ grieved." Then George suddenly pulled a paper out of his pocket and said, "Read that aloud, child." "Is it a bit of your new novel?" "Yes, it is a bit of my new novel. Read." I did. "_We talk and talk, and never act. Oh, this curse of civilization! You make excuses for S----, for your bitter enemy. Magnanimous, but effete! He is behaving well, but so unpicturesquely. He offers a woman no excuse for staying with him. Oh, Italy! Italy! You, magician, have made me long for the life of Italy, the silver incandescent sands, the passionate brown of the olives--but why should I try to outdo you in your own imitable manner?_" "_In_imitable, you mean, don't you, child? But no, we will not trust this white devil of Italy. Go and fetch me a plateful of cold meat. And here are the keys; go down to the cellar and get a bottle of Burgundy. Corton eighty-eight. You'll see the label. We will carouse." I was delighted. George and I finished the bottle between us, and he ate a good supper, and said no more of Mr. Aix, or Mother either. I almost liked George just then. I saw why Lady Scilly liked him. He is funny and gentle. I asked him to choose a school for Ben, and he said he would think about it. It is the oddest feeling to suddenly become "pals" with one's own father. I had never known it before. There is some good in George, and his eyes are very bright. CHAPTER XX My mother is changed--not horrid, but quite changed. She goes out nearly every morning at ten, with Aunt Gerty, whose manners are worse than ever, and who has a little chuckling, cheerful way of going about that simply irritates me to death! There is a secret, evidently, and George and I are out of it. It brings us together. He is not happy, no more than I am, no more than Mother is. She is excited, not happy. She has taken to wearing her mouth shut lately; once we used to tease her because she kept it open, and looked always just as if she were going to speak, or had done speaking. But Mother is a good woman. Although she gads about so much, she doesn't neglect her household duties. She sees after George's comfort as much as ever, and keeps all onions out of the house as usual. The more she fusses over him, the less he likes it. He shook his head once, when Mother had tidied his writing-table for him--it took her two hours--and then he said half-laughing, "A bad sign, Tempe! Read your Balzac."