Mrs. Ardayre smiled. "I cannot, of course, think any one can compare with my Denzil! And yet I am not a real mother at all! I am totally devoid of the maternal instinct in the abstract! Children bore me, and I am glad I have never had any more. I adore Denzil because he is Denzil. I loved my husband and delighted in being the mother of his son." "There are the two sorts of women, are not there? The mother woman and the mate woman--we have to be one or the other, I suppose. I hardly yet know to which category I belong," and Amaryllis sighed, "but I rather think that I am like you--the man might matter even more to me than the child, and I know that the child matters to me enormously because of the man. It is all a great mystery and a wonder though." Beatrice Ardayre looked up at the portrait of John; his stolid face did not give her the impression that he could make a woman, and such a fascinating and adorable creature as Amaryllis, passionately in love with him, or fill her with mysterious feelings of emotion about his child! Now, if it had been Denzil she could have understood a woman's committing any madness for him, but this stodgy, respectable John! Her bright brown eyes glanced at Amaryllis furtively, and she saw that she was looking up at the picture with an expression of deep melancholy on her face. There was some mystery here. She went over again in her mind what Denzil had told her about Amaryllis. It was not a great deal. He had arrived at Bath that time looking very stern and abstracted, and had mentioned rather shortly that he had come down with the head of the family's wife in the train, and had gone on to Ardayre with her, after meeting them the previous night at dinner for the first time. He had not been at all expansive, but later in the evening when they had sat by her sitting room fire, he had suddenly said something which had startled her greatly: "Mum--I want you to know Amaryllis Ardayre. I am madly in love with her--she is going to have a baby, and she seems to be so alone." It must be one of those sudden passions, and the idea seemed in some way to jar a little. Denzil to have fallen in love with a woman whom he knew was going to have a child! She had said something of this to him, and he had turned eyes full of pain to her and even reproach. "Mum--you always understand me--I am not a beast, you know--I haven't anything more to say, only I want you to be really kind to her--and get to know her well."