Mrs. Brereton, among her many other moral hallucinations, was in the constant habit of remembering that she was an excellent mother, and that, next to her own affairs, it was highly probable that among all others she took most thought for those of her daughter. Consequently, on the afternoon following the Maxwell entertainment she determined to devote herself to Maud and her prospects, and with that end in view drove down with her in a space-annihilating motor-car to their house just above Windsor, in order both to talk with her by the way, and when arrived there see that things were in order for the week-end party that they were giving on Saturday. The summer weather which had begun with such splendour a week ago had by an unparalleled effort kept itself up, and seven days of sunshine had brought out a wealth of fresh green leaf on the trees, in London still varnished and undimmed by dust, and in the country of an exquisite verdure. Overhead the sun was set in a sky of divine purity, and the swift motion through the air she felt to be quite as exhilarating to the senses as would have been the afternoon party to which, had not duty called, she would otherwise have gone. She had never wished to have a daughter, and the abandonment of this party reminded her how often she was sacrificing herself to Maud. Indeed, she seemed to herself a most excellent mother.

But, notwithstanding that she was generally and justly supposed to be able to spar with the most robust emergencies, Mrs. Brereton did not particularly fancy the task she had set herself, or that, strictly speaking, had been set her; in fact, early this morning there had arrived for her a note from her hostess of last night, saying what sort of communication her dear Anthony had made her before he went to his bed. Under these circumstances it was only right that Maud's mother should be asked whether she sanctioned the step he proposed to take in presenting himself as a suitor for her daughter's hand. The phrasing of the note, as might be expected from so successful a lady as Mrs. Maxwell, was as unimpeachable as its contents, and both filled Mrs. Brereton with joy, for the two odious sons of her husband by his first marriage would inherit the bulk of her husband's fortune, and Maud would have almost nothing. Now, Mrs. Brereton had no desire whatever to see her an impecunious peeress, or, indeed, an impecunious anything, and she had come to the very wise conclusion that money certainly is money, and that where a chance of marrying a huge fortune was presented, it would be distinctly a failure of maternal duty not to put its advantages very distinctly and decidedly before her daughter. But she was never very much at ease with Maud, whom, if she had been another woman's child, she would have described as an uncomfortable kind of girl. But being her own, she spoke of her always as very original and with great opinions of her own. She did not particularly like girls, any more than she liked young men or new wines: they all needed maturing before they were fit for the palate. But she was just, and gave full allowance to the necessity for being young before you can become mellow, though she wished that Maud would be quick about it. Really, when a girl is nearly nineteen, nearly six feet high, with a superb figure, and a face at which men undisguisedly stare, and with reason, it is time for the possessor of such advantages to begin thinking about making her nest. Here was one ready, excellently well-feathered. She only hoped, strongly but somehow remotely, that Maud might see it in that light. But she considered her daughter to combine symptoms of hopeless simplicity with those of the most world-weary cynicism. It was impossible that both could be genuine, but it puzzled her mother to say which was.

The sun was quite hot, and Mrs. Brereton at once put up her parasol, for a large glass screen sheltered them from the wind.

"Delicious the sun is," she said, as she extinguished it. "And what a delightful drive we shall have, Maud! When one goes into the country like this, I can never understand why we ever live in town. So sensible of dear Nellie, is it not? She has bought a cottage in the country, with an orchard and a dairy and all that, and dreams of butter, she tells me. She probably wakes and finds that it is earwigs. That she doesn't tell me."

"I don't think she would care about it if she couldn't tell every one about it," said Maud. "She doesn't strike me as a real country-lover, does she you?"

"Oh, I dare say not in the sense you are, dear," said her mother. "I always wonder where you get it from. Fancy your father or I existing in the country!"

"But you said this moment that you couldn't understand why we ever live in town."

This was the kind of thing which frequently occurred when Mrs. Brereton chattered to her daughter. Maud seemed to think that in light conversation people meant what they said, an error so astounding that it seemed almost hopeless to point it out.

"Dear Maud, how literal you are!" she said. "You don't seem to realize that one has moods which may last a year or more, and may only last a minute. That one lasted less than a minute."

Maud laughed.

"How unsettling!" she said. "For how can one know whether one really likes anything? It may only last a minute."

Mrs. Brereton plunged at the opening, a header, so to speak, into the frothy water.

"Ah, that is where wisdom comes in," she said. "You have not only to choose and to do what you like, but to choose that which your reason dictates, that which you know is really advantageous for you. Life would be a very simple matter if one only followed one's inclinations. It is a lesson one cannot learn too early."

There was a short pause, in which Mrs. Brereton passed in rapid summary to herself all the occasions she could remember on which she had not followed her inclination. It seemed to her that there were an immense number; she was always doing kind things, and the pause would have been a long one had not Maud broken it.

"I suppose you mean that you want me to marry Anthony Maxwell!" she remarked in a perfectly even voice.

This was an occasion on which her mother was absolutely unable to decide whether Maud's disconcerting directness sprang from internal and childlike simplicity or a brutally frank insight into the diplomacy of others. But she put the best construction possible on it.

"Dear Maud," she exclaimed effusively, "it is too dear of you to meet me halfway like that. To tell you the truth, I was a little shy about opening the subject to you, as I did not know what you thought; but it is much easier for me to talk about it now."

"Much," said Maud.

"To think that you should have guessed!" said the other; "but you always were so quick."

"It did not need much quickness after my prolonged conversation with him last night."

"So you had a good talk to him," said Mrs. Brereton. "I am so glad."

Maud raised her eyebrows.

"Surely you meant me to," she said. "Whenever I looked up, meaning to go, I always thought I saw you pinning me down again. Did you not?"

Mrs. Brereton was not quite sure that things were going comfortably.

"I don't know what you mean by pinning you down," she said; "but it is, of course, perfectly true that I wanted you to get better acquainted with him. I am sure, Maud, you are a very lucky girl."

The lucky girl put up her parasol; her face was absolutely immobile except for the least curl at the corner of her mouth, which might have expressed almost anything—fatigue, indifference, anything.

"Then he has made formal proposals?" she asked. "His mother wrote to me asking if I sanctioned his doing so."

"You said yes, I suppose?"

"Naturally I should not forbid it, considering, as I do, that it is an admirable match for you. The young man is amiable, quite without vices I should think (which, after all, is most important, as so many marriages are wrecked that way). He is shrewd and clever, quite his father's son, and he is immensely wealthy."

"Those are all very good qualities," said Maud.

"My dear, of course they are. In bare justice to myself, I must say that, when I recommend a thing, I do so not on vague grounds, but on well-defined and cogent reasoning. Or perhaps you would prefer a husband who is a sot, a fool, and a pauper? You could easily find one of those without any great trouble."

Maud laughed; she was one of those people whom temper in others leaves perfectly undisturbed. Then she laid her hand on her mother's.

"Dearest mother," she said, "I really did not mean to be tiresome. Was I? You were saying that he was well-conducted, clever and wealthy."

"I should have thought that was a good deal to say for any one," said her mother, not yet quite calm. "There are heaps of perfectly well-conducted people in the world who are fools, heaps of very wealthy people who are vicious, and plenty, as I said, who have neither wits, morals, nor money. Which sort do you want? Or do you look forward to spinsterhood in a cottage with a canary? Almost all your father's fortune will go to Otho and Reginald. You will be quite poor."

"I don't love Anthony Maxwell," said Maud, with a deplorable relapse into directness.

"Oh, my dear, have you been reading some sentimental novel? You seem to think that every girl meets the man eternally pre-destined for her, with clear-cut features and a coiffure like a hair-dresser's. That sort of romantic stuff is extinct. It never existed in fact, and it is rapidly disappearing in fiction. If it were true, the world would have come to an end long ago, for we should all have caught such frightful colds by reading Dante and Shakespeare on violet-covered banks that we should have died without children."

Mrs. Brereton settled herself on the cushions of the carriage, feeling much more comfortable. If only Maud would continue to argue the question, she felt sure of her ground.

"You are not silly, I know, dear," she went on; "in fact, I think you are too much the other way. You like analyzing and picking things to bits, and saying, 'This seems to me faulty here, and that seems to me exaggerated there.' I assure you it is a mistake. And when you say you do not love him, you are using expressions of the meaning of which you have no idea. You don't know what love is—no girl can. You may feel attracted to a handsome face as you can be attracted by a landscape or a piece of jewellery, but no one with the slightest sense of refinement could marry a man because he was handsome. It is a grossly indelicate idea, and one I am sure which you never entertained."

"I was not proposing to marry any man because of his good looks," said Maud.

"No, dear, I am certain you were not; and I was only saying in the abstract that to do such a thing would be an inconceivable folly. If your husband was Adonis himself, you would forget he was even passably good-looking in a fortnight. Dear me, yes! one gets used to nothing so quickly. And in the same way and with the same speed you get used to the absence of good looks. Anthony Maxwell, I allow, has but small claim to them; and I was only wondering whether, when you said that you did not love him, you did not have a half-conscious idea in your mind that if he was very handsome you might have. Dearest Maud, how wonderfully well you are looking! no wonder Anthony fell in love with you."

Again the corner of Maud's mouth twitched.

"I hope that was not the cause," she said, "for you have just told me what an absurd reason that is for wanting to marry anybody!"

For the moment Mrs. Brereton had a violent desire to box those eligible ears, but restrained it, and proceeded to propound her philosophy of matrimony with the most admirable lucidity.

"Ah, that is where men are different from us," she said. "It is part of the province of women, as dear Mr. Austin says, to be beautiful, but it is quite outside the province of men. Look at your father now, Maud; he has perhaps less pretentions to good looks than any one I ever saw. But what a happy, what a blessed"—and the word did not stick—"marriage ours has been! Looking back even now, I have never yet seen a man whom I would sooner have chosen. And long, long ago—a year ago at least—I thought that if only dear Anthony would be attracted by you, what a happy thing it would be. It is silly to expect high romance. High romance does not exist for ninety-nine hundredths of the world—luckily, I am sure. And I am sure you are not romantic."

Maud had listened with the closest attention to what her mother was saying, but she made no reply, and in silence they bowled swiftly along the Bath Road, which seemed to open like torn linen in front of them. Mrs. Brereton also well knew that silence in season is as necessary an equipment to the dialectician as the most eloquent speech, and having said all that she really intended, she had no design of ruining the effect of her words by vain repetition. Once, indeed, she called attention to the loveliness of the clustered pyramids of bloom that covered the horse-chestnut-trees in the gardens round the houses of some small village half buried in blossom, but the tone of Maud's "Lovely!" showed her quite unmistakably that general conversation was for the present a futility. At the same time her daughter's abstraction indicated that her own words were probably sinking in, a process with which Mrs. Brereton had no desire whatever to interfere. At last, as they approached their gates, the girl furled her parasol with a snap which might easily betoken a decision.

"I have made up my mind," she said—"at least, I have made up my mind not to make up my mind immediately. I suppose you don't expect me to decide at once?"

"No, dear, certainly not," said her mother; "though personally I cannot see why you should hesitate."

"You think it is ideal in every way?"

"Ideal, no! An ideal is realized about once every hundred years. There are disadvantages necessarily attaching to every step, however advantageous. But I consider it most eminently desirable."

The girl looked at her a moment.

"Did you never look out for what seemed to you ideal, mother?" she asked.

"Yes, dear, once. When I was exactly fifteen I fell passionately in love with the Emperor of Germany, whom I had once seen at a distance. To marry him seemed to me ideal. But whether it would have been or not I was never privileged to know. He and I both married some one else. I was acutely miserable for at least a fortnight. But during that fortnight I learned something, which was that your time can be fully occupied in getting what you can get, without wasting your energy in longing for what you can't."

"Poor mother!" said Maud gravely; and in her voice Mrs. Brereton thought she could detect more of irony than simplicity.

They had no further conversation on the subject for the present, since during the next couple of hours Mrs. Brereton successfully settled a hundred details and arrangements that would have taken a less quick woman half a day to grapple with. The house stood some quarter of a mile from the river-bank, on the reach between Maidenhead and Bray, red-bricked and creeper-covered, but picturesque in a haphazard, bungalow manner, intolerably dank in the winter, when languid, foggy water covered the lower lawn, but ideally adapted for summer Sunday parties. It had long been left to moulder and mildew, but some ten years ago, while the Thames was still only a geographical expression, Mrs. Brereton, in a hunt for some place of the kind near London, but sufficiently remote not to be overrun, had lighted on it, and with her quick eye had seen how admirably it would suit her wants. Inside there were not more than a dozen bedrooms and two or three adequate reception-rooms; but the garden was exquisite, and had now under her guiding hand fulfilled rare possibilities.

A steep slope of grass, negotiable by three flights of stone steps, led from the gravel path, which bordered the house, on to the lawn, which lay in terraces towards the river, framed with intersections of box hedges, cut into pyramidal and geometric shapes, and bordered by vivid beds of flowers. The entrance of each of these lawns was in line with the centre of the house, and they communicated one with another by broad steps of grass. One was levelled for croquet, another was a rose-garden with a pergola running round it, while that nearest the house was during the summer chiefly occupied by garden and basket chairs. The whole front of the house, again, was, with its gravel path, capable of being roofed in with an awning, carpeted with rugs, and furnished for eating, drinking, card-playing, and other diversions not less diverting. Behind the framing of box hedge which encircled the lawn lay on each side a shrubbery of blossoming trees, lilacs and laburnums, and behind, again, tall elms and beeches shaded the paths that led to the meadow of untamed land below the lawn, and bordered the river itself, where weeping-willows trailed their slow-moving, slender fingers over the tarred roof of the boat-house. Here, also, Mrs. Brereton had caused to be erected a private bathing-place, dug out at great expense in the river. It was remarkable only for the fact that it had never been used, except once by Mr. Brereton by mistake.

Mildred had not been down here before during the spring, and as she was going to entertain next Sunday, and would not be able to get down again in the interval, it followed that a good deal of method and quickness were required to effect all that had to be done in a couple of hours. Like a wise woman, she knew that in those cases in which, as here, she was quite aware what she wanted, and only required it to be done, the best servants are those who will not be intelligent and have ideas of their own, but simply obey. Consequently she had, as gardeners, a staff of Parsifals, simple blameless fools, who moved tubs of geraniums to such places as she wished and to no others, who planted carnations in beds where she wished carnations to be planted, and did not execute fantasies of their own. The greenhouses which lay on the other side of the house were full and ready with plants to be bedded out, and for the first half-hour she was occupied in choosing exactly what she wanted in each bed. After that there was the upholsterer with his choice of canvases for the awning that lay along the length of the house, and the carpenter who was to erect a small wooden shelter which should be convenient for Bridge-players. Then came the choice of rugs, hangings, and furniture for the marquee which stood on the first lawn, as well as for the awning-shelter close to the house. Persian carpets had to be unrolled, spread out, and examined, the choice of chairs and tables had to be made, palms to be sought for the corners, a piano to be tuned, the croquet to be inspected and set up.

After an hour, indeed, it seemed as if chaos had resumed its reign, or that some half-dozen London drawing-rooms had been sacked and the contents strewn on the lawn. Here stood a great Chinese vase forlornly alone in the middle of the grass, here two Chippendale tables huddled together for company, here roll upon roll of Persian rugs were gradually creeping like a tide of many-coloured waters over the green, here was a stack of chairs, and here half a hundred lanterns with which the tent was lit. And in the middle of it all, triumphantly ruling chaos, stood Mrs. Brereton, never confused herself and never confusing others, bidding, forbidding, changing, confirming, as she directed simultaneously the struggling gardeners and an army of housemaids, at her best, as she always was, when a great deal of practical business had to be managed in a very short time.

"No, the croquet must be shifted to the right; it gives more margin," she was saying. "Just show them, Maud. The piano opposite the French window from the drawing-room, but it's no use putting it in till you have the carpets down. The scarlet cushions belong to the other sofa; no, there's no answer"—this to a footman with a telegram. "Of course, if there are no nasturtiums out yet it can't be helped. Yes, seven lanterns at least; the electrician must look to the wires, one on each of the supports; we shall dine there as well as lunch next Sunday if it is warm. Bridge-tables? Yes, in the new shelter, two of them, and one in the corner of the long awning. What's that matting doing? It belongs to the conservatory; put it back there. I shall want thick common baize under the rugs; they will get damp otherwise. The big flower-holder in the corner; no, more in the corner than that. Wolland's will send down two palms, one to go behind the piano, the other indoors in the drawing-room."

But out of chaos by such processes of evolution emerged order, and it was still an hour before sunset when they left again. Mrs. Brereton had to a high degree that most useful gift of being able to banish any one subject completely from her mind when she was occupied with another, and it was not till she was seated with Maud again in the carriage that the question which had occupied them so exclusively driving down reasserted itself. Even then she felt it was the better part of wisdom to let things be. Maud was clearly preoccupied, with what, it was impossible not to guess, and as she was, her mother knew, one who chose to make decisions for herself, she bridled her desire to know what was passing in her daughter's mind. She always found that conversation with Maud was difficult; to-day it was particularly so. But just as they stopped at the Grosvenor Square house this desire mastered her.

"And what do you think you intend to do?" she asked.

"I think I intend to refuse him, but I am not sure."

And with such cold comfort her mother had to be content.

That evening Mrs. Brereton was dining at Lady Ardingly's, the woman whom she admired and respected more than any one in the world. She had been nobody quite knew who, but, anyhow, Russian and as poor as a church mouse; but she had got, and nobody quite knew how, a position which was in its way unique. She had married Lord Ardingly while quite a girl in the teeth of strenuous opposition, fighting her battle quite unaided, and, instead of his having to live her down, it had soon become quite clear that it would be his part to toil, faint yet pursuing, in her wake. All her life success had attended her, she always knew what she wanted and always got it, and whoever else rose and shone and passed, Lady Ardingly continued to burn with unbated luminance. To-day, so Mildred Brereton thought, Marie Alston was the star, but she quite realized that this particular star, like those of the music-halls, might some day set; but Lady Ardingly remained swung high in the social heavens, a permanent centrepiece. Marie was the fashion, it is true, but Lady Ardingly was much more than the fashion; that word was far too superficial to describe her.

She had been, no doubt, once of great personal beauty, but clearly it was not that which gave her the power she possessed, for it had passed years ago, and she was now something over sixty, with splashes of rouge dashed in an impressionist manner on to her face, not from any motive of vanity, but simply from long force of habit; a wig, no more to be mistaken for natural growth than a top-hat, was perched negligently on one side of her head, and to balance it, in the evening, a tiara perched on the other. Her neck was covered with jewels; her hands, which were somewhat lean and knuckly, were crammed with rings; and she dressed superbly. But all these things, like the rouge, were the result of habit; she had been accustomed to that sort of thing, and continued it, and certainly he would have been a bold man who tried to reason with her or alter her. Her husband, for instance, never attempted it. Finally, she was inordinately fond of gossip, card-playing, and other people's business, and was eminently good-natured provided that path did not cross her own. But she had so many private side-paths down which she was liable to wander, that one never knew for certain where she would come out next, or how she would act in any given set of circumstances. But as long as doing a kindness to another did not interfere with what she desired herself, she was always ready, even at the cost of trouble and personal exertion, to help her friends if they approached her in the proper spirit, which implied a good deal of abasement. She had been in her time a very considerable political intriguer, and, following her invariable rule of always getting whatever she wanted, she had built up her husband into the edifice of the Conservative Government. But the game—for it had never been more to her than that—had now ceased to amuse her, and she cared no longer how greatly her poor Ardingly floundered in the spacious halls of the Admiralty. This he seldom failed to do. She was, finally, the very antipodes of those women who, because generals and statesmen tell them things not generally known, consider themselves, in that they are at the centre of things, as wielding some vague political influence, and fly about telling all their friends what everybody has said. Lady Ardingly never flew about; she sat quite still and gave orders. Why people did as she told them they never quite knew; it arose, perhaps, from her habit of always being right.

Ardingly House was a vast and modern erection in Pall Mall. "So convenient for Ardingly," as his wife used to say in her slow foreign speech, "now that he is at the Admiralty. He can come home to lunch, and tell me all the blunders he has made since breakfast. And there is plenty of time for him to take two steps and make them all over again before dinner." Not long ago, at the time when Mrs. Maxwell was house-hunting, she had heard a vague rumour that there was a possibility of this mansion being in the market, and had had the temerity to call on Lady Ardingly to know if it was so. She heard her in silence, not helping her out at difficult points, and then remarked: "Yes, we are going to sell it, and live at Clapham Junction. So convenient a train service." This Mrs. Maxwell had rightly interpreted to be a denial of the rumour, and had quitted the subject with some precipitation. It was also characteristic of Lady Ardingly that she did not fly about town, making the place ring with the story. Here, perhaps, lay one of the secrets of her effectiveness: she never dissipated her energy.

It was to this lady that Mrs. Brereton decided to carry her doubts and perplexities. There was only a small dinner-party that night, and before the men left the dining-room she found herself sitting by her on a sofa. Lady Ardingly happened to be in an admirable temper, and the opportunity was golden.

"I have not seen you for very long, dear Mildred," said she. "Tell me your news. How is Jack Alston? Have you seen him lately?"

This kind of frankness even Mildred found a little embarrassing. Lady Ardingly, of course, knew everything about everybody, and never, except when there was something to be got by it, assumed ignorance.

"Jack Alston? Oh, yes, I constantly meet him, in the way one does meet in London," she said rather foolishly.

"Yes, dear, I know you are great friends. Who does not? Do you hope he will get a Government post after the election? Tell me; I am really asking for news."

"Well, Jack hopes for it, of course. The War Office is what he is running for."

"The War Office? He knows about rifles and powder, does he not? Well, there is a feeling just now for having men who know their work. Ardingly, I find, is reading Nelson despatches. Very nice for him. What is there of news? Never mind politics; they are dull. Some scandal."

"They say Mrs. Alington has made a mess of her affairs," said Mildred. "I always knew she would, dabbling in the mining-market like that. Her husband is furious."

"Ah! Now, I wonder who can have told you that? I saw Alington only this evening. It is not so at all. They are the best of friends. What else?"

"Did you hear about Jim Netson? I am told he was down at Brighton on Sunday with——"

"Dear Mildred, where can you get these things from?" asked Lady Ardingly. "Jim Netson was lunching with me on Sunday. What else?"

Mildred found it difficult to bear this sort of thing quite good-naturedly. Like many other women, she repeated what she heard, adding a little here and there, not caring particularly about the truth of a story so long as it amused. But Lady Ardingly contradicted her flat, and, the worst of it was, she was invariably right. She did not in the least care for made-up stories, and Mildred, who was by way of being a well-informed woman on the matter of other people's backyards, was rather nettled. But she swallowed her pique and laughed.

"Dear Lady Ardingly," she said, "it is no use my telling you things. You always know best and most."

Lady Ardingly took some coffee, and as she removed the cup from the tray, the spoon clattered on the floor.

"Clumsy fool!" she said to the footman, and without a pause: "You have got something on your mind, Mildred. What is it? Always get things off your mind, my dear, as soon as possible. It is very enfeebling to worry. Is it"—and her eye fell on Maud, who was talking in a group on the other side of the room—"is it about your daughter? She is getting a big girl. It is time you married her."

Mrs. Brereton gave a little staccato note of admiration.

"You are too wonderful!" she said. "Yes, it is exactly that. Anthony Maxwell wants to marry her."

"Very nice. The son of the great Mr. Maxwell, you mean?" asked Lady Ardingly, without the slightest inflection of irony.

"Yes."

Lady Ardingly laughed.

"What a pity we did not sell them this house! Maud would have been mistress here," she said. "At present she does not wish to marry him. Is it so? I do not wonder, dear Mildred, at a momentary hesitation. Do you? But it would be a very good marriage for her."

"So I have told her."

"Then, do not tell her so again. Ah, here come the men! Let us play Bridge immediately. Only I will not play with your husband, dear Mildred. I would sooner play with a groom out of the stables. We will have two tables, and he shall be at the other one. Send Maud here a moment. I will speak to her."

Mrs. Brereton rose with alacrity.

"Dear Lady Ardingly, you are too kind!" she said with heartfelt gratitude.

"And do not put your oar in, my dear," said Lady Ardingly impassively.

Maud, looking very shy and tall, came in obedience to the summons.

"You are too unkind, dear Maud, to an old woman," said Lady Ardingly. "You have not said a word to me all the evening, and now we are going to play Bridge. They all insist on playing Bridge. You would like to play with your father, would you not? We will arrange a table for you. Yes, that will be very pleasant. You must come and talk to me one of these days quite quietly. To-morrow—no, to-morrow will not do. Come to lunch with me on Friday. What a tall girl you are! and, my dear, do you know you are wonderfully handsome? Now they want me to play Bridge."