And at that moment we drew up at Daly’s and the conversation ceased. We were in time for the last part of the first act as the girl had demanded—though apparently one priceless song about a Bowwow named Chow-chow had eluded us.... My sorrow at this failure on our part was heightened by the information that it was one of the best Fox Trots you could dance to.... I was very anxious to know what a Fox Trot was: in Uganda, as a form of amusement, it is in but little vogue.... But we’d missed it, and though I endeavoured to bear up under the staggering blow, I found my attention wandering more and more from the stage, and centring round the story or the sixteenth Earl Fingarton and his first wife Betty. The picture of the old man, shutting himself up more and more in his Highland castle, waiting for the time when he could be relieved of duty, and go once more to the woman he loved, came between me and the stage.... _His_ child to carry on the line, but not _hers_.... But it would be carried on in direct descent—that was the great point—it would remain unbroken. The sacrifice of the father had had its reward.... "There is Lady Fingarton in the box opposite," said Molly Lakington in my ear, as the lights went up at the end of the first act.... "Sitting next to Bobby ... and Cecilie on the other side." I glanced across the theatre. The youngster was just getting up to go out and smoke, and for a moment or two he bent over a lovely girl, who smiled up into his face. Then he turned to his mother, and she too smiled—a smile of perfect happiness. She was a sweet-looking woman of rising fifty, and on a sudden impulse I spoke my thoughts to Bill Lakington. "He ought to come down, Bill: he oughtn’t to bury himself. He’d like it—once he’d broken away. It’s not fair to them—or himself. Why doesn’t he?" "I can’t tell you, old man..." he answered, slowly. "I know no more than you. He’s happy up North: when he does come he’s always hankering to get back again." "But they go up there, I suppose?" "Sometimes," he said, leaning back in his chair. "Sometimes. But never for long.... When shooting starts, and he has guests." "I agree with Sir Richard," said Molly, decidedly. "It’s not fair. He’s got the son he wanted, and now he sees as little of the woman who gave it him as he can.... He ought at any rate to pretend...." The orchestra was filing back: the smokers were returning to their seats. And as the safety-curtain rolled slowly up, I glanced once more across the theatre at Lady Fingarton. Did she feel that too? And it seemed to me that her eyes were weary.... He ought at any rate to pretend.... *II*