"Billy hasn't much influence over Hector." There was no fear, only certainty in the statement. "Hector's so vain. It's his vanity, only his vanity that prevents him from giving me my freedom." "One day he'll be forced to give you your freedom. But," of a sudden, anxiety crept into Julia's tired voice, "if he doesn't? What if he doesn't give you your freedom, child?" "Even if he doesn't,"--proudly, all the misery of the past days forgotten, Aliette took up the unspoken challenge--"even if he never does,"--proudly, all her being resuffused with happy courage, she rose to her feet--"it will make no difference. Whatever happens, I shall always be your son's--I shall always be Ronnie's." And bending down, she sealed the promise with a farewell kiss--a kiss whose memory lingered with Julia long after Aliette had gone, comforting her against the prescience which had prompted that unspoken challenge, even against the prescience of death. CHAPTER XXII 1 Even average people, when obsessed by the grand passion--which is a far rarer passion among Anglo-Saxons than Anglo-Saxon novelists would have us believe--cannot be judged by average standards. Such are as surely bound to the wheels of terror as to the wheels of courage. In such, strength and weakness, misery and ecstasy, love's heaven and love's hell, mingle as wax and honey in the comb. For the grand passion is the sublime exaggerator of human emotion, the indefinable complex of the soul. So, to Aliette, returning from her interview with Julia, it seemed as though London's self had altered its countenance, as though every face encountered on her homeward way spoke of her own newly-regained happiness. Her momentary change of feeling toward Ronnie had been trivial; an undercurrent of misunderstanding rather than an overt quarrel. Yet the relief of knowing it over was tremendous. She found him huddled in the armchair before the gas-fire; Ponto, surreptitiously introduced into Powolney Mansions, couched at his feet. He rose as she entered; and the great dog, wagging a delighted stern, rose with him. In a flash of new insight, she saw how alike they were: the big man and the big dog--devoted both, both asking only kindness. And whimsically she thought: "I've been unkind to both of them. I ought to have gone to see Ponto when he was ill. I ought never to have let myself drift away, even in thought, from Ronnie." As always, Ponto nuzzled his great head against her knee; Ronnie, as always, kissed her. But that night, as never since Chilworth nights, Aliette answered Ronnie's kisses, giving him all her confidence, all her tenderness. "No more quarrels, man. No more secrets," she whispered drowsily, falling to sleep in his arms. "Quarrels, darling?" he whispered back. "We couldn't really quarrel--you and I."