She was about to step forward, when, unseen by him, she caught a glimpse of her son's countenance, as he watched the vicar. His teeth were set, his lips drawn slightly back, and a fierce look of anger puckered his forehead, as with fists clenched he made an involuntary movement after the couple who had entered the drawing-room. Mrs Glaire drew back softly, and laying her hand on her beating heart, she walked to the other end of the dining-room, seating herself in one of the windows, half concealed by the curtain. There was a smile upon her face, for, quick as lightning, a thought had flashed across her mind. Here was the means at hand to bring her son to his senses. She had meant to take the vicar into her confidence, and ask his aid, stranger though he was, for she felt that his position warranted it; but now things had shaped themselves so that he was thoroughly playing into her hands. She knew Eve, that she was ingenuous and truthful, and looked upon her marriage with her cousin as a matter of course. She was a girl who would consider a flirtation to be a crime towards the man who loved her; but the vicar would evidently be very attentive even as he had begun to be, and already Richard's ire was aroused. Richard jealous, she meditated, and he would be roused from his apathetic behaviour to Eve, and all would come right. "And the vicar?" she asked herself. Oh, he meant nothing, would mean nothing. He knew the relations of Richard and his cousin, and the plan would--must succeed. But was she wrong? Was Richard annoyed at the vicar's demeanour towards Eve, or was it her imagination? The answer came directly, for Richard flung into the room, took up a sherry decanter, and filling a glass, tossed it off. "Curse him! I won't have him here," he said aloud. "What does he mean by talking to me like that? by hanging after Eve? I won't have it. You there, mother?" "Yes, my son," she replied, rising and looking him calmly in the face. "Look here, mother, I won't have that clerical cad here. What do you mean by asking him to dinner?" "I asked him as a guest who has behaved very kindly to us, Richard. He is my guest. I asked him because I wished to have him; and you must recollect that he is a clergyman and a gentleman." "If he wasn't a parson," cried Richard, writhing beneath his mother's clear cold glance, for it seemed to his guilty conscience that she could read in his face that he had broken his word about Daisy--"if he wasn't a parson I'd break his neck." "Richard, I insist," cried his mother, in a tone that he had not heard since he had grown to manhood, and which reminded him of the days when he was sternly forced to obey, "if you insult Mr Selwood, you insult your mother." "But the cad's making play after Eve--he's smiling and squeezing her hand, and the little jilt likes it." "No wonder," said Mrs Glaire, calmly. "Women like attentions. You have neglected the poor girl disgracefully."