“I don’t want you to thank me. I shall feel happier when you have left the country. You have brought everlasting disgrace upon your father’s name, and I do not wish to be reminded constantly of the fact.” Here she stopped. “You were altogether wrong when you thought I was about to thank you,” he said quietly. “In the first place, I have no intention of accepting your charity, and in the second place I have no aptitude for farming either in Canada or in England.” “I have booked your passage,” she said, with an air of finality. “Then there will be a vacant bed going cheap on the Atlantic Ocean!” replied Peter, with a smile. She looked round the room contemptuously and again her eyes went to the table. “So you’d rather do this waster’s work?” “Waster’s work, I agree,” he said, “but infinitely more intellectual than mending boots or washing convicts’ laundry--my last occupation. I expect nothing from you, Mother. For some reason which I have never quite understood, you have hated me ever since I was a child. I have no wish to reproach you with being ‘unnatural.’ You have been under the thumb of Anita Bellini ever since I can remember.” “How dare you!” Her voice was vibrant with anger. “‘Under the thumb!’ What do you mean?” “I only know that Anita Bellini has withered every good feeling in every good woman who has been brought into contact with her. I only know that she is evil; what hold she has over you, Heaven knows. It has been sufficiently strong to rob me of the one gift which is every man’s right--a mother’s love. I dare say that sounds a piece of sickly sentimentality, but it is a big thing--a very big thing.” “You have had what you deserved,” she interrupted brusquely. “And I did not come here to discuss my duty. If you prefer to go to Australia instead of Canada----” “I prefer Lambeth to either place at the moment,” he said coldly. She shrugged her shoulders ever so slightly. “You have made your bed and you must lie on it. I have done all that is humanly possible, more than could be expected, remembering how you have humiliated me and made my name----” “My father’s name,” he corrected. He got under her guard there, and to his wonder the comment to which irritation drove him produced a remarkable effect. Her face flushed; the hard mouth grew harder. “Your father’s name is my name,” she said harshly. Her eyes were blazing; he had never seen her so moved. “I will give you twenty thousand pounds to leave the country,” she said. “That is my final offer.” He shook his head. “I shall never want money from you,” he said, and, walking to the door, opened it and she left the room without another glance at him.