“Well--answer me, then. Say you haven’t, mother!” His voice broke unexpectedly and he took her hand with a gentler touch. “I’ll believe anything you tell me,” he said almost humbly. She mistook his tone and raised her head with a rash clutch at dignity. “I think you’d better ask this gentleman to excuse you first.” “No, by God, I won’t!” he cried. “This gentleman says he knows all about you and I mean him to know all about me too. I don’t mean that he or anybody else under this roof shall go on thinking for another twenty-four hours that a cent of their money has ever gone into my pockets since I was old enough to shift for myself. And he sha’n’t leave this room till you’ve made that clear to him.” He stepped back as he spoke and put his shoulders against the door. “My dear young gentleman,” I said politely, “I shall leave this room exactly when I see fit to do so--and that is now. I have already told you that Mrs. Amyot owes me no explanation of her conduct.” “But I owe you an explanation of mine--you and every one who has bought a single one of her lecture tickets. Do you suppose a man who’s been through what I went through while that woman was talking to you in the porch before dinner is going to hold his tongue, and not attempt to justify himself? No decent man is going to sit down under that sort of thing. It’s enough to ruin his character. If you’re my mother’s friend, you owe it to me to hear what I’ve got to say.” He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. “Good God, mother!” he burst out suddenly, “what did you do it for? Haven’t you had everything you wanted ever since I was able to pay for it? Haven’t I paid you back every cent you spent on me when I was in college? Have I ever gone back on you since I was big enough to work?” He turned to me with a laugh. “I thought she did it to amuse herself--and because there was such a demand for her lectures. _Such a demand!_ That’s what she always told me. When we asked her to come out and spend this winter with us in Minneapolis, she wrote back that she couldn’t because she had engagements all through the south, and her manager wouldn’t let her off. That’s the reason why I came all the way on here to see her. We thought she was the most popular lecturer in the United States, my wife and I did! We were awfully proud of it too, I can tell you.” He dropped into a chair, still laughing. “How can you, Lancelot, how can you!” His mother, forgetful of my presence, was clinging to him with tentative caresses. “When you didn’t need the money any longer I spent it all on the children--you know I did.” “Yes, on lace christening dresses and life-size rocking-horses with real manes! The kind of thing children can’t do without.” “Oh, Lancelot, Lancelot--I loved them so! How can you believe such falsehoods about me?” “What falsehoods about you?” “That I ever told anybody such dreadful things?”