"Ah! You are kind. I _do_ like you," says she, gazing at him with earnest eyes. "Yes, I know I shall be happy with you." She is evidently comparing him most favourably with Uncle George. "And you will be fond of me, won't you? You will be good to me?" "I will, so help me God!" says Rylton very solemnly. To her it seems an oath of allegiance--kindly, tender, reassuring. To him it is a solemn abjuration of all his devotion to--the other. CHAPTER X. HOW MAURICE GIVES WAY TO TEMPER, AND HOW LADY RYLTON PLANTS A SHAFT OR TWO. AND HOW MARGARET SAYS A WORD IN SEASON, AND HOW IN RETURN COLONEL NEILSON SAYS A WORD TO HER. Maurice goes straight to his mother's room, not from a sense of duty, but a desire to clinch the matter finally. Lady Rylton would be the last person to permit backsliding where her own interests were concerned, and perhaps---- He does not exactly say it to himself in so many words, but he feels a certain dread of the moment when he shall be alone--a prey to thought. What if he should regret the move he had taken, to the extent of wanting it undone? His step grows quicker as he approaches his mother's room. His interview with her is of the slightest--a bare declaration of the fact. She would have fallen upon his neck in the exuberance of her triumph and her satisfaction, but he coldly repulses her. "My dear mother, why such enthusiasm over my engagement to a girl of whom you distinctly disapprove?" "Disapprove! Of Tita! Dearest Maurice, what an idea!" "We won't go into it," says Maurice, with a gesture of ill-suppressed disgust. "I know your opinion of her. I beg to say, however, I do not share it. Badly as I shall come out of this transaction, I should like you to remember that I both admire and like Miss Bolton." "I know, dearest boy, I know," says Lady Rylton, in the tone one would use to an acute sufferer. "It is very noble of you, Maurice. It is a sacrifice. I felt sometimes I had no right to demand----" "The sacrifice is hers," says he shortly, gloomily. His eyes are bent upon the ground. "Hers! That little upst---- that poor unsophisticated child! My dear Maurice, why run away with things? Of course she was charmed, enchanted, _flattered_, in that you admired her so much as to ask her to be your wife." "She was not," says Maurice flatly. "Exactly what I should have expected from such a----" Lady Rylton checks herself in her fury. "From such an innocent creature," substitutes she. "But for all that, I shall consider how great is the sacrifice you have made, Maurice--how you have given up the happiness of your life to preserve the old name." "I am beginning to get tired of the old name," says Maurice slowly. "Its nobility seems to me to be on the decline."