"Then you are angry?" Another smile. "Not angry. Only a little hurt." "Hurt! Why? It was done in your interests." The old eyes looked into the young. "We thought that, if we consulted you, you mightn't allow it." "We! Then Ronnie"--the young eyes looked into the old--"Ronnie knew. And he never told me--he never told me." "It wasn't Ronnie's fault." Julia laid a hand on Aliette's shoulder. At the touch, it seemed to the younger woman as though all the misery of the past days stabbed to one dagger-point of pain. Jealousy wrenched at her tongue. She wanted to cry out, "Oh, you're cruel, cruel. Why can't you tell me the truth, the truth?" But the pain stabbed her dumb; stabbed and stabbed till her mind was one unbearable tension of self-torture. Ronnie no longer loved her. Ronnie only wanted to do his duty by her. And it was her own fault, her very own, ownest fault, for not having loved him enough. And then, suddenly, the tension snapped--leaving her weak, defenseless. "You're so good--so much too good to me," faltered Aliette. "So infinitely better than I deserve. If only--if only I hadn't brought all this trouble into your life." "Nonsense, child," said Julia bruskly--for, despite her own weariness, she recognized hysterics in the other's voice. "It isn't nonsense. I've brought you only troubles--troubles." "Don't be foolish. The troubles, as you call them, are nothing. Nothing at all in comparison with Ronnie's happiness." "Happiness!" Now hysteria was blatant in the other's every word. "Happiness! How _can_ I make him happy? I can't--can't even make a home for him. All I've done is to--to let him keep me--in a--in a boarding-house." "You're overtired, child. Overwrought. Otherwise you wouldn't talk like that." The brusquerie had given place to a quiet understanding tenderness; the hand tightened on Aliette's shoulder. "I tell you, you have brought happiness into our lives. Into Ronnie's life and into mine. Nothing that either of us could ever do----" "But I'm not worth it. I'm not worth it." Tear-choked, Aliette seized Julia's hand and pressed it to her lips. "I've been rotten--rotten to your son. That's why he didn't tell me about Billy." "Rubbish!" Resolutely the elder woman withdrew her hand. "Utter rubbish! It was entirely my fault that you weren't told about the admiral." "Your fault?" A ray of hope illumined the brown eyes. "Yes. Ronnie wanted you to know. But I overpersuaded him." Silently the blue eyes held the brown, till--gradually--self-control came back to Aliette; till--gradually--she realized the tension gone from her brain. "I'm sorry," she began. "I don't often make scenes." "My dear"--exhausted, Julia lay back on the cushions--"you needn't apologize. No one understands better than I that life isn't altogether easy for you. But don't lose your pluck. Believe me, it'll all come out right now that we have the admiral on our side."