Ronnie, who had been watching the polo at Ranelagh, arrived ten minutes late for dinner.

He came unannounced into the drawing-room; kissed his mother; complimented her on her clothes (she had changed into a dinner-gown in his honor); and inquired about the afternoon.

"Dullish," pronounced Julia--and broached the Brunton invitation.

"The Bruntons!" He seemed a little taken aback at the name. "I don't think I care to go."

"Nonsense. Of course you must go. A barrister's career is mainly social."

She prolonged the argument over dinner; she mentioned the Brunton "influence," the Ellerson case: till eventually--somewhat against his better judgment--she persuaded him to go.

A very different Julia this from the hostess of the afternoon! Always a little constrained, a little too dignified in company; with her son, she hid affection under a mask of brusquerie almost dictatorial. In boyhood Ronnie had been frightened by the mask; even at thirty-six he was only just beginning to realize the affection it concealed.

Only since his return from the war had full knowledge of this affection come to him. He saw her now--sipping her coffee in the print-hung, walnut-furnished dining-room--as a lonely old woman dependent on his love. And the sight hurt, because his heart was already aware of the possibility that one day there might be another woman, a younger woman, in his life.

"I wish you'd let me make you a decent allowance," she said abruptly. "You ought to be about everywhere. You ought to stand for Parliament. Even if you don't get in, it's an advertisement."

"I thought you hated publicity, mater."

"So I do--for myself." She cogitated. "I could manage another eight hundred a year."

"And deprive yourself of----"

"Of nothing. I don't want any money. I'm too old to know how to spend it. You'll have it all when I'm dead," she added.

"Mater!"--he was the softer in many ways--"I wish you wouldn't talk like that."

"Why not? Death's a fact. I've no patience with people who won't face facts. Life isn't a kinema show."

Coffee finished, they removed themselves to Julia's work-room--a square box of an apartment, book-lined, an Empire desk in its exact center under the illuminated top-light. Julia sat down at the desk; opened a drawer; and took out her check-book.

"Eight hundred a year," she said, writing. "That's two hundred a quarter. I'd better cross the check."

"Don't be absurd, mater." Ronnie frowned.

"But I want you to have it."

"What for?"

"Oh, clothes. You ought to dress better. Club subscriptions. Entertaining. Cigars. I don't know what men spend their money on. Women, mostly, I suppose."

Blotting the check, she would have given anything in the world to say: "Ronnie, darling, do take it. I can't slobber like other women. But I love you--you're everything I have in the world. Please, please Ronnie, don't refuse this. It's not money--it's just a token--a token of my love for you."

Actually, she said: "If your father hadn't been such a fool about money matters, he'd have left you his estate. He knew that I could always make all I wanted."

Ronnie frowned again. "You know perfectly well that I won't take it."

"Not even to oblige me? I--I want you to take it. It may cheer you up. You've been looking depressed lately."

"Have I?"

They had played this comedy of the allowance more than once since his father's death; but never before had he seen her so insistent.

"Yes." She stretched out the check to him, knowing her offer already rebuffed. In a way, she was proud of his independence. All the same, it hurt. One ought to be able to do more for one's child.

"I'm not depressed. And I'm not hard up. Really."

He smiled at her across the desk--one of those rare smiles which reminded her of the boy she had tried to tip at Winchester. She seemed to hear his boyish voice, "The pater gave me a fiver when he was down last. I don't need any more. Honestly, mater."

"You're quite sure?"

"Quite." He watched her tear up the check; noticed a sheaf of proofs on her desk; and questioned her about them. "Another short story!"

"No. It's an article on 'Easy Divorce' for next month's 'Contemplatory.' These are the duplicate proofs."

"You're opposing it?"

"Of course."

"On moral grounds?"

"Not entirely. Listen!" She put on her spectacles, and read him the opening paragraphs. "The woman of to-day is asking that divorce and remarriage should be made easier. Why? Because the woman of to-day refuses to face the simple fact that primarily she is her husband's helpmate. Personally I am a Churchwoman; and therefore find it impossible to believe the remarriage of divorced people justified. I am willing to admit that, in a limited number of cases, divorce itself may be expedient. But I feel that to make divorce easier would be a direct encouragement of immorality. We have to face facts. Woman is not, never has been, and never will be capable of resisting the sentimental impulse."

"You're a real Puritan at heart, aren't you, mater?" he interrupted.

She put down the proofs, vaguely distressed that he should prefer her conversation to her written word. For work, to Julia Cavendish, counted more than anything in life--except this lean, clean, sober-minded son of hers.

"It isn't a very good article, I'm afraid. Dot was in too much of a hurry for it. I never could write quickly."

These last months she had discovered herself writing even less quickly than usual. Once or twice, even, she had been forced to break off in the middle of the morning by a strange fatigue--a pain in her back. She had meant to consult a doctor; meant to ask Ronnie's advice. But she hated fussing about herself, hated fussing Ronnie. And besides, Ronnie was depressed--in some trouble or other. She could feel that trouble instinctively.

"You're sure nothing's worrying you?" she asked him as they said good night.

"Quite sure. Sleep well, mater."

He kissed her, and went.

"No," he thought, striding home to the rooms in Jermyn Street which she had insisted on furnishing for him. "No! Nothing's wording me. In point of sheer fact, I've never been so bucked in my life."

And he was "bucked," ludicrously so; "bucked" because he had yielded to his mother's persuasions; ludicrously so because, just for the moment, he had altogether forgotten Hector Brunton's existence.

Only when he awoke next morning did Ronald Cavendish remember that Aliette was a married woman--and the possibility that, after all, she might not be one of the guests at her uncle-in-law's dinner-party.