‘No,’ he said; ‘I am awfully fond of old Ivor. I don’t see why I should make myself nasty to him. Father likes him no end.’ This did not serve to mollify Gundred. ‘You should always do what mother wishes, without asking questions,’ she rejoined. ‘And what father may do is no concern of yours. Your father may be taken in like everybody else. But you ought to think it a privilege to obey your mother. Think of what you owe her--yes?’ Like many women, Gundred believed that, having engendered a child, entirely without regard for that problematical child’s wishes, must necessarily give her a lifelong claim on his gratitude. Like many women, she insisted on the debt, everywhere and always, until, by ceaseless demands, she had come near to exhausting the supply. Accordingly the conference continued for a while, unsatisfactorily. Jim for once had lost his grip on that lamentable diplomacy which an unwise mother’s exactions so early engrain into her children. He could no longer even acquiesce. He became warm in Ivor’s defence, and, with every word, Gundred felt more certainly that his disloyalty was the crime of the evil force that possessed him. That force must unquestionably be combated and dispossessed. And soon she found that she was incapable of coping with Jim. Worse, she could not even have recourse to the secular arm in the person of her husband, for her husband was equally under this incalculable diabolical sway. She grew more angry in her demands as the demands were refused. And Jim, flushed with opposition, verged on rudeness, would not be brought to promise the abandonment of his new friend, and treated his mother’s ultimatum with ominous cheerfulness. ‘You would not like to have to choose between Mr. Restormel and mother, would you--no?’ suggested Gundred with the supreme imprudence of excitement. And this weapon, too, had lost its efficacy with too frequent use. Jim had heard it too often now to retain any illusion as to its dramatic value. He was very uncomfortable, though, as he answered: ‘Oh, rot, mother; you know that is impossible. I wish you would not say such things. You don’t want to make me out a beast to you, do you, just because I don’t want to be a beast to Ivor? It’s all rot finding fault with him, you know. He is a jolly good fellow, and father would not have got him here if he had not liked him too. So he must be all right, anyway.’ With a fatal lack of tact, Gundred went off on a side issue, and began protesting against the unnecessary crudeness of her son’s language--a crudeness which she made haste to attribute to Ivor’s degrading influence. ‘Well,’ replied Jim, ‘if there is nothing else to say against poor old Ivor than that! He isn’t the first person in the world who has said “rot,” and I don’t imagine he will be the last.’ And on that hit he rose and made his escape, despite his mother’s attempts to restrain him with loving arms, and exact, by kisses, a more satisfactory termination to the dialogue.