Henry found great consolation in this remark; it offered a loophole, and he readily placed his faith in loopholes. He was also relieved, because he considered, his mother having said that, there was no necessity now for him to say anything. Let her prattle about the estate, and about the use he was going to be to her; there would always be, now, those rooms in London in which he could take refuge. “Why, you suggested it yourself,” he could say, raising aggrieved eyebrows, if any discussion arose in the future. It was true that her next observations diminished the value of his loophole, but he chose to ignore that; what was said, was said. Rooms in London, Christmas with his mother, and perhaps a week-end in the summer, and a couple of days’ shooting in the autumn; he wouldn’t mind a little rough shooting, and had already ascertained from Lynes that there were a good many partridges and a few pheasants; and he could always take back some birds to Isabel. He saw himself, on the station platform, with his flat gun-case and cartridge bag, and the heavy bundle of limp game, rabbits, partridges, and pheasants tied together by the legs. He would go out to-morrow, and see what he could pick up for Isabel. His mother would never object; she would think the game was for his own use, in those rooms she, thank goodness, so conveniently visualized. And if it wasn’t for Isabel, in future years, well, no doubt it would be for somebody else. He awoke from these plans to what his mother was saying. “I don’t think it would be good for you to live entirely in the country. So I shall drive you away, Henry dear, whenever you show signs of becoming a vegetable. I shall be able to carry on perfectly well without you, as I have done all these years. You need never worry about that. Besides, you must go to London to look for Mrs. Henry.” “What?” said Henry, genuinely startled. His mother, said, smiling, that some day he would have to marry. She would like to know her grandchildren before she died. There was the long attic at the top of the house which they could have as a playroom. “Sure there is no one?” she questioned him again, more urgently, more archly this time, and he denied it laughing, to reassure her; and suddenly the laughter which he had affected, became hearty, for he had thought of Isabel, Isabel whom he would never dream of marrying, and who would never dream of marrying him; Isabel, insolent, lackadaisical, exasperating, with the end of a cigarette—a fag, she called it—smouldering between her lips; Isabel with her hands stuck in the pockets of her velveteen jacket, and her short black hair; Isabel holding forth, perched on the corner of a table, contradicting him, getting angry, pushing him away when he tried to catch hold of her and kiss her—“Oh, you think the idea of marrying funny enough now,” said his mother sagely, hearing him laugh, “but you may be coming to me with a very different tale in a few months’ time.”