As she spoke, standing before him with her arm lifted in unconscious action, almost towering over him in the greatness of her suffering and indignation, Frank stood lost in astonishment. Mothers, so far as he knew, were glad to get their daughters off their hands. Such was the tradition in all regions he had ever frequented. He had expected difficulties, no doubt, but not of this kind. It was with a certain consternation that he gazed at her, asking himself what it meant. It was all real, there could be no doubt of that. But yet,--he was in Fitzroy Square. It was not a duke’s daughter he had ventured on engaging to himself, but a humble artist’s, who everybody would have thought would have been glad enough to have her child provided for. This Frank knew, or, at least, he believed he knew, was the light in which the matter would have been regarded by sensible people. And he, though Belgravia no doubt might have scorned him, was no such contemptible match for the daughter of the painter. He stood surprised and discomfited, not knowing how to reply to a woman who addressed him so strangely. Perhaps it would be best to let her have it all her own way, and exhaust her indignation without contradicting or opposing her; but then the passion in her face moved the young man. ‘I never thought of coming as an enemy,’ he said, with some heat. ‘I have loved her ever since I saw her. I am not to blame for that.’ How could he be to blame? He had done naught in hate, but all in honour. And thus the mother and the lover stood confronting each other, rivals; but in a conflict which for one of them was without hope.