“Yes,” said Mathilde, thankful to be directly addressed. “Wasn’t it queer? Pete was taking me to see a picture that looks exactly like Mrs. Wayne, only Mrs. Wayne hasn’t such a round face, and there in front of it was grandpapa.” Adelaide rose very slowly from table, lunch being fortunately over. She felt as if she could have borne almost anything but this--the idea of her father vaporing before a picture of the Madonna. Phrases came into her head: silly old man, the time has come to protect him against himself; the Wayne family must be suppressed. Her silence in the drawing-room was of a more concentrated sort, and when she had taken her coffee and cigarette she said to Mathilde: “My dear, I promised to go back to Vincent at this time. Will you go instead? I want to have a word with Mr. Wayne.” Adelaide had never entered any contest in her life, whether it was a dispute with a dressmaker or a quarrel with her husband, without remembering the comfortable fact that she was a beauty. With men she did not neglect the advantage that being a woman gave her, and with the particular man now before her she had, she knew, a third line of defense; she was the mother of his love, and she thought she detected in him a special weakness for mothers. But it would have been better if he had respected women and mothers less, for he thought so highly of them that he believed they ought to play fair. Sitting in a very low chair, she looked up at him. “Mathilde has been telling me something about a plan of yours to take her to China with you. We could not consent to that, you know.” “I’m sorry,” said Pete. The tone was pleasant. That was the trouble; it was too pleasant a tone for a man relinquishing a cherished hope. It sounded almost as if he regretted the inevitable disappointment of the family. Adelaide tried a new attack. “Your mother--have you consulted her?” “Yes, I’ve told her our plans.” “And she approves?” Wayne might choose to betray his mother in the full irresponsibility of her attitude to so sympathetic a listener as Mr. Lanley, but he had no intention of giving Mrs. Farron such a weapon. At the same time he did not intend to be untruthful. His answer was this: “My mother,” he said, “is not like most women of her age. She believes in love.” “In all love, quite indiscriminately?” He hesitated an instant. “I put it wrong,” he answered. “I meant that she believes in the importance of real love.” “And has she a spell by which she tells real love?” “She believes mine to be real.” “Oh, yours! Very likely. Perhaps it’s maternal vanity on my part, Mr. Wayne, but I must own I can imagine a man’s contriving to love my daughter, so gentle, so intelligent, and so extraordinarily lovely to look at. I was not thinking of your feelings, but of hers.” “You can see no reason why she should love me?” Adelaide moved her shoulders about.