Anne never doubted that she was mistress of her house, and perhaps she did not doubt it now, but, for Sam, a child with the dreadful sensibility of a child, this moment when she demanded calmly, implacably, in the interests of discipline, that he should himself pronounce sentence on his soaring hopes was of a pitiable bitterness which brought him near the breaking-point. At one moment, to be raised to the heavens of ecstasy, and at the next to be cast down to the blackest hell of despondency; to be promised all, and to be expected to refuse! He was not more callous than any other child, and Anne knew perfectly well that a Land of Heart’s Desire had been opened to him. It was not fair, and she knew that it was not fair, to ask him to speak the word of refusal; but she thought that it was good for him, and once she had, by her tone, if not by her actual words, indicated the reply which she required, she knew that he would suppress his leaping hopes and answer, in effect, that home, be it ever so humble, was home, and parents, whatever their status, were parents. He had a wild impulse to defy her, to tell her that he would come to see her on Saturday afternoons, that to wear the cap with the silver owl was the dearest ambition of his life, but he knew that it was hopeless. Even at such a moment as this, and with such an ally as Mr. Travers, he dared not challenge Anne. Her ascendancy was what it had always been, absolute. He shuffled unhappily and tried to meet Mr. Travers’ eye bravely, but succeeded only in looking up as far as the second button of his waistcoat. “No,” said Sam Branstone, hero, and fled, a heartbroken, tear-washed child, to hide his face and choke his sobs upon his pillow. And he was named for valour in the evening paper! “No,” repeated Anne, when he had gone, and added, anticipating argument, “I’m a woman of few words.” Travers knew he was fighting a losing engagement, but he had a shot in the locker yet, and a hardy determination not to be worsted by the likes of Anne Branstone. His pride was up, a pride which, over and above his benevolence and his sense of the fitness of things, would not allow him to regard the saving of his son’s life lightly. Travers counted, the saviour of the son of Travers counted. He had offered to lift Sam Branstone in one way, and if they would not let him do it in that way, he would do it in another. Sam Branstone, willy nilly, was going to be lifted. “I suppose,” he said, covering the retreat from his first position, “that it is of no use pointing out to you the advantages which my proposal offers to your son?” She shook her head. “Come, Mrs. Branstone,” he went on, conscious that it was no use and platitudinous at that, “we all have to make sacrifices for our children.” “I make them,” said Anne curtly. It was true. “Yet you will not make this?”