"My son----" Julia, whose inclination was to decline--for some time now, late nights had wearied her--became visibly more gracious. "Yes. My cousin Hermione--poor dear, what a time she's been going through--and all this publicity--so distressing for everybody--says he was simply charming to her during the case. So wise! So calm! So helpful! You must be very proud of your son, Mrs. Cavendish." Not for nothing had the heiress of The Raneegunge Jute and Cotton Mills married an ambassador! "Ronnie's coming to dinner this evening," said Ronnie's mother. "If he's free on Thursday we shall both be delighted. May I telephone you?" 2 Ronnie, who had been watching the polo at Ranelagh, arrived ten minutes late for dinner. He came unannounced into the drawing-room; kissed his mother; complimented her on her clothes (she had changed into a dinner-gown in his honor); and inquired about the afternoon. "Dullish," pronounced Julia--and broached the Brunton invitation. "The Bruntons!" He seemed a little taken aback at the name. "I don't think I care to go." "Nonsense. Of course you must go. A barrister's career is mainly social." She prolonged the argument over dinner; she mentioned the Brunton "influence," the Ellerson case: till eventually--somewhat against his better judgment--she persuaded him to go. A very different Julia this from the hostess of the afternoon! Always a little constrained, a little too dignified in company; with her son, she hid affection under a mask of brusquerie almost dictatorial. In boyhood Ronnie had been frightened by the mask; even at thirty-six he was only just beginning to realize the affection it concealed. Only since his return from the war had full knowledge of this affection come to him. He saw her now--sipping her coffee in the print-hung, walnut-furnished dining-room--as a lonely old woman dependent on his love. And the sight hurt, because his heart was already aware of the possibility that one day there might be another woman, a younger woman, in his life. "I wish you'd let me make you a decent allowance," she said abruptly. "You ought to be about everywhere. You ought to stand for Parliament. Even if you don't get in, it's an advertisement." "I thought you hated publicity, mater." "So I do--for myself." She cogitated. "I could manage another eight hundred a year." "And deprive yourself of----" "Of nothing. I don't want any money. I'm too old to know how to spend it. You'll have it all when I'm dead," she added. "Mater!"--he was the softer in many ways--"I wish you wouldn't talk like that." "Why not? Death's a fact. I've no patience with people who won't face facts. Life isn't a kinema show." Coffee finished, they removed themselves to Julia's work-room--a square box of an apartment, book-lined, an Empire desk in its exact center under the illuminated top-light. Julia sat down at the desk; opened a drawer; and took out her check-book.