Even as he faced the light, he was saying to himself that it was rummer than ever; but it was rummest when he turned for his legitimate look at her. She was older than he had assumed the strange lady to be; but she was a long way from the little old lady in the gray shawl. This was his mother, and it was over--he felt it as those sinking for the third time may feel. In another instant he saw his mistake. He had been pulled up out of the surge into the terrible air--this was his mother, and it had just begun! He mastered his breath--his breath that under the water had been playing tricks with him. He looked her over, searching stare for searching stare. Her fair hair had lost what must once have been a golden lustre, but it was carefully, elaborately arranged, waved, curled, braided. It was as fashionable as her clothes. The white mask of powder left clear the contour of the fine, thin nose but cloaked the subtler modellings of the face. The blue eyes, idle yet intent, looked at him from behind it; below them it was rent, once, by the scarlet stab of the mouth. Peter remembered vaguely having heard that the tropical sun necessitated such protection. It was the northern dimness and drizzle that turned make-up into a moral question. Even for the _grands boulevards_, to be sure, Mrs. Wayne’s make-up would have been overdone. This was the chief result of his searching stare. She wasn’t like one’s mother at all, confound it!--not like any one’s mother. He would have been glad of a little more sophistication than even at wise two-and-twenty he was conscious of possessing. “Your maid?” he asked, remembering the figure outside the door. “Oh, yes; my old Frances. She recalls you as a baby. She’ll want to see you. You must speak to her before we go.” “But you’re not going----” “I find I’d better get off to-night. I’ve learned since landing, that if I do, I can just get a boat at Vancouver. It’s not as if I had any business to do. You’ll take me to dinner somewhere--some restaurant. I don’t like hotels.” “But--you don’t mean you’ve come for only twenty-four hours--across all that?” The straight red mouth elongated itself into a smile. “If there weren’t so much of it to cross, I could, perhaps, stay longer. I came only to say one or two things.”