“I don’t say much about your childhood,” he began impartially. “You took credit for what was given you in the way of looks and wit, you practised them up a lot, and then fought your mother with them, to take away from her what she’d been given, along the same lines. Maybe it was your fault, maybe it was hers. All I know is you fought. “Later you fought me to get hold of Arnold, and make a pink sugar pet lamb of him. Well, you had me there; for quite a time you took the bones out of Arnold. I daresay you would have ruined him, but you had other fish to fry, and then the war came along, and Arnold headed right, and got his quittance. “You fought your mother for Elise too, and you know what happens when two dogs get on to a bone? Well, that’s what happened to Elise. Then I consented for you to go to Europe. It struck me people in Europe had always liked fighting, and you were getting wasted in a civilised country like America. “You made a mistake in marrying a European, because European men expect to have a life of their own, but by gosh—Prince Girla made a greater mistake in marrying you! “Hermione Brett, if that young man is put into a low place in the next world, make no mistake about it—you’ll foot the bill! You’ve driven him towards vice more surely than any poor girl who gets a hardly earned living by it—and it wasn’t your profession. You had money. Then you brought a child into the world and left it. There may be a shabbier trick to play on the universe than that, but I don’t know it. I guess speculating with trust funds is a kind action compared with leaving a little child to grow up motherless.” “I did not leave my child!” cried Hermione passionately. “He was taken from me!” “No, Hermione,” said Mr. Brett inexorably. “Your husband said he wanted the child to grow up in his own country, but he would _not_ separate it from you if you would live there, and let him come into the house for three months of the year, so that he could be with the child part of the time. You could have kept it. He offered to draw up a deed of separation on those lines—and you refused.” “I couldn’t live in Roumania,” said Hermione sharply. “The climate would have killed me, and Girla’s word was not to be trusted.” “His deed was,” said Mr. Brett imperturbably. “Very large financial interests hung on his keeping his word. I drew it up myself, and I had guaranties.” There was a long silence. Mr. Brett sighed heavily. The dark pockets under his eyes looked deeper than ever. “I think I’ll die before you,” he said, as if he were speaking to himself.