"Well, never mind the school for a moment, mother dear. Tell me what _you_ thought of doing. You must have had some plan in your head all these years while the money was dwindling away. Tell me your scheme, then we can compare the two and see which is better." Mrs Gifford bent her head over the table, and scribbled aimlessly with a pen in which there was no ink. She made no answer in words, yet as she waited the blood flamed suddenly over Claire's face, for it seemed to her that she divined what was in her mother's mind. "I expected that you would marry. I have done my best to educate you and give you a happy youth. I expected that you would accept your first good offer, and look after _me_!" That was what a French mother would naturally say to her daughter; that was what Claire Gifford believed that her own mother was saying to her at that moment, and the accusation brought little of the revolt which an English girl would have experienced. Claire had been educated at a Parisian boarding school, and during the last three years had associated almost entirely with French-speaking Andrees and Maries and Celestes, who took for granted that their husbands should be chosen for them by their parents. Claire had assisted at betrothal feasts, and played _demoiselle d'honneur_ at subsequent weddings, and had witnessed an astonishing degree of happiness as an outcome of these business-like unions. At this moment she felt no anger against her own mother for having tried to follow a similar course. Her prevailing sensation was annoyance with herself for having been so difficult to lead. "It must be my English blood. Somehow, when it came to the point, I never _could_. But Mr Judge is different from most men. He is so good and generous and unmercenary. He'd be kind to mother, and let her live with us, and make no fuss. He is as charming to her as he is to me. Oh, dear, I _am_ selfish! I _am_ a wretch! It isn't as if I were in love with anyone else. I'm not. Perhaps I never shall be. I'll never have the chance if I live in lodgings and spend my life teaching irregular verbs. Why can't I be sensible and French, and marry him and live happily ever after? _Pauvre petite mere_! Why can't I think of _her_?" Suddenly Claire swooped down upon her mother's drooping figure, wrapped her in loving arms, and swung her gently to and fro. She was a tall, strikingly graceful girl, with a face less regularly beautiful than her mother's, but infinitely more piquant and attractive. She was more plump and rounded than the modern English girl, and her complexion less pink and white, but she was very neat and dainty and smart, possessed deep-set, heavily-lashed grey eyes, red lips which curled mischievously upward at the corner, and a pair of dimples on her soft left cheek.