When holiday seasons approach, people of ample means ask: "Where shall we go?"; people of narrow: "Can we go anywhere?" The imminence of Christmas made Winnie realize this difference (no question now, as in days gone by, of Palestine and Damascus); but the edge of it was turned by a cordial invitation to spend Friday till Tuesday (Saturday was Christmas Day) at Shaylor's Patch. Her eyes brightened; her old refuge again looked peaceful and comforting. She joyfully laid the proposal before Godfrey. He was less delighted; he looked rather vexed, even a little sheepish.

"They do jaw so," he objected. "Arguing about everything night and day! It bores a chap."

"You weren't bored when you were there in the summer."

"Oh, well, that was different. And I'm afraid mother will be disappointed."

"About the Sunday, you mean? Mightn't you run up for the day?"

He laid his hand on her shoulder. "I say, I leave it to you, Winnie. I leave it absolutely to you—but mother's set her heart on my spending Christmas with them. I've never missed a Christmas all my life, and—well, she's not very well, and has a fancy about it, you see."

"Do it, of course, Godfrey. And come down to me on Sunday." Winnie was now determined that Woburn Square should have no grievances, except the great, inevitable, insuperable one.

"You are a good sort, Winnie." He kissed her cheek.

"But I don't know how you'll shift for yourself here!"

"Oh, I'll put up in Woburn Square for a couple of nights, and do a theatre on Friday perhaps."

So it was settled, with some embarrassment on Godfrey's part, with a faint smile on Winnie's. He would have two nights and a whole day at Woburn Square; and he had never mentioned Mabel Thurseley's name, not even though Winnie had made openings for him, had tried some delicate "pumping." And with whom did he think of "doing a theatre" on Friday night?

Godfrey Ledstone—with whom everything was to have been straightforward, all above-board—found himself burdened with a double secret. He couldn't bring himself to tell Winnie of Mabel Thurseley. In the early days of his renewed intercourse with Mabel, he had half-heartedly proposed to his mother that the girl should be informed of his position; he had been tearfully prayed not to advertise the shame of his family. He had lost any sort of desire to advertise it now. He could not now imagine himself speaking of the matter to Mabel—telling her, right out, that he was living and meant to live with a woman who was not his wife in law; wives of any other sort were so entirely outside Mabel's purview. That he had been a bit of a rake—she would understand that, and perhaps in her heart not dislike it; but she would not understand and would thoroughly dislike Winnie Maxon. Anyhow, by now it was too late; he had played the bachelor too long—and, as a flattering if remorseful inner voice whispered, too successfully—on those Sundays in Woburn Square, whither Mabel often came, whence it was easy to slip across to Torrington Square. Mr. and Mrs. Ledstone never grudged him an hour's leave of absence if it was spent in calling on Mrs. Thurseley, their esteemed friend and neighbour.

It was not that he had conceived any passionate love for Mabel. An amiable, steady, rather colourless girl, and (as Amy Ledstone said) not very pretty, she was hardly likely to engender that. He had not for her—and probably never could have—the torrent of feeling which carried him off his feet at Shaylor's Patch, and made him dare everything because of Winnie's bidding. And he was still very fond of Winnie herself. But the pull of the world—of his old world—was strong upon him; Mabel embodied it. Bob Purnett had been right about him; in his scheme of life, after the gaieties of youth, came "settling down." And when it came to seeing things as they were, when the blurring mists of passion lifted, he found it impossible to feel that life with Winnie was settling down at all. Life with Winnie—was that being settled, tranquil, serene, ready to look anybody in the face? No, it was still to be irregular, to have secrets, to be unable to tell people with whom you spent your time. It was neither one thing nor the other; it was the bond, without the guerdon, of service, it was defiance without the pleasures of lawlessness.

Covertly, persistently, let it in justice be added lovingly, his mother and father worked upon him. The old pair showed diplomacy; they made no direct attack on Winnie nor upon his present mode of life; they only tried to let him see what a much pleasanter mode of life was open to him, and what joy he would give those who loved him best in the world if only he would adopt it. Bringing grey hairs with sorrow to the grave—not a pleasant thing for a son to feel that he is doing! Without scruple they used Mabel Thurseley in their game; without scruple they risked the girl's happiness; their duty, as they saw it, was to their son, and they thought of him only. Mabel had no throng of suitors and none of the arts of a coquette. The good-looking young man soon made his impression, and soon perceived that he had made it. All looked easy, and this time really straightforward. It was a powerful assault to which he exposed himself when he once again began to frequent Woburn Square.

Amy Ledstone looked on, irritable, fretful, in scorn of herself, calling herself a traitor for having told Winnie of Mabel, and a coward for not daring to tell Mabel about Winnie. But she dared not. A lifelong habit of obedience, a lifelong custom of accepting parental wisdom even when she chafed under it, the tyranny of that weak heart, were too much for her. She lacked the courage to break away, to upset the family scheme. And to work actively for Winnie was surely a fearful responsibility, however strongly she might pity her? To work for Winnie was, in the end, to range herself on the side of immorality. Let Winnie work for herself! She was warned now—that was enough and more than enough. Yet Amy's sympathy made her cold and irritable to her brother. He misconstrued the cause of her attitude, setting it down to a violent disapproval of Winnie and a championship of Mabel Thurseley. The old people petted, Amy kept him at arm's length, but to Godfrey their end and purpose seemed to be the same.

"Winnie doesn't realize what I go through for her," he often thought to himself, when his sister was cross, when his mother said good-bye to him with tears in her eyes, when his father wrung his hand in expressive silence, when he manfully made himself less agreeable than he knew how to be to Mabel Thurseley.

Yet—and the fact was significant—in spite of all, it was with a holiday feeling that, after seeing Winnie off to Shaylor's Patch, he packed his bag and repaired home—he thought of Woburn Square as home. He was greeted with great joy.

"Fancy having you with us for two whole days!" said his mother.

"Like old times!" exclaimed his father, beaming with smiles on the hearthrug.

The theatre had been arranged for. Mrs. Ledstone's health forbade her being a member of the party, but Mr. Ledstone was ready for an outing. Amy would go; and Mabel Thurseley had been invited to complete the quartette. Amy looked after her father, to Godfrey fell the duty of squiring Miss Thurseley. They had good seats in the dress-circle; Mr. Ledstone, Amy, Mabel, Godfrey—that was the order of sitting. The play was a capital farce. They all got into high spirits, even Amy forgetting to chide herself and content to be happy. Mabel's life was not rich in gaiety; she responded to its stimulus readily. Her cheeks glowed, her eyes grew bright and challenging. She made a new appeal to Godfrey.

"I can't let her think me a fool." So he excused his attentions and his pleasure in them.

"I suppose you go a lot to the theatre, don't you?" she asked. "I expect you're blasÉ!"

"No, I don't go much."

"Why not? Don't you care about going alone?"

"Now why do you assume I need go alone?"

"No, of course you needn't! How silly of me! Do you ever take—ladies?" She was roguish over this question.

"Yes, now and then."

"Mamma wouldn't let me go alone with a man."

"Oh, we don't ask mamma. We just go."

"Do you go out somewhere every evening?"

"Oh no. I often stay at home, and read—or work."

He had said nothing untrue, but it was all one big lie, what he was saying—a colossal misrepresentation of his present life. The picture his last answer raised in her mind—the man alone in his lonely room, reading or working! Poor man, all alone!

"We girls get into the way of thinking that bachelors are always gay, but I suppose they're not?"

"Indeed they're not." Godfrey's answer was decisive and rather grim.

"Or else," she laughed, "they'd never want to marry, would they?"

"Anyhow, one gets tired of gaiety and wants something better." His eyes rested on hers for a moment. She blushed a little; and the curtain rose on the second act.

"How your mother adores you!" she began at the next interval. "She'd die for you, I think. She says you're the best son in the world, and have never given her any trouble."

Godfrey's conscience suffered a twinge—no less for his mother than for himself.

"I'm afraid mothers don't know all about their sons, always."

"No, I suppose not. But there are some people you know you can trust."

"Come, I say, you're making me out too perfect by half!"

She laughed. "Oh, I don't accuse you of being a milksop. I don't like milksops, Mr. Godfrey."

So she went on, innocently showing her interest and her preference, and in the process making Godfrey feel that his family and himself were accomplices in a great and heinous conspiracy. But there was still time to get out of it, to put an end to it. There were two ways out of it, just two and no more, thought Godfrey. Either she must be told, or there must cease to be anything to tell her.

But the sternest moralist would hardly demand that momentous decisions and heart-rending avowals should be made on Christmas Day. That surely is a close time? So thought Godfrey Ledstone, and, the religious observances of the day having been honoured by all the family, the rest of it passed merrily in Woburn Square. The Thurseleys, mother and daughter, came to spend the afternoon, and came again to dinner.

"So good of you to take pity on us," said Mrs. Thurseley, a soft-voiced pleasant woman, who was placid and restful, and said the right thing. She would make an excellent mother-in-law—for some man.

Like the old-fashioned folk they were, they had a snapdragon and plenty of mistletoe and plenty of the usual jokes about both. As there was nobody else on whom the jokes could plausibly be fastened (Mr. Ledstone's reminiscences of his own courting tended towards the sentimental, while the subject was, of course, too tender in widowed Mrs. Thurseley's case), they were naturally pointed at Mabel and Godfrey. Mabel laughed and blushed. Really Godfrey had to play his part; he could not look a fool, who did not know how to flirt. He ended by flirting pretty hard. He had his reward in the beams of the whole circle—except Amy. She seemed rather out of humour that Christmas; she pleaded a headache for excuse. When Mrs. Ledstone said good-night to her son, she embraced him with agitated affection, and whispered: "I feel happier than I've done for a long while, Godfrey darling."

This was the pressure, the assault, of love—love urgent and now grown hopeful. But his Christmas was not to end on that note. There was also the pressure of disapproval and of scorn. Neither was easy to bear to a disposition at once affectionate and pliable.

The old people went to bed. Amy stayed, watching her brother light his pipe.

"Not going to bed, Amy? One pipe, and I'm off!"

"What do you think you're doing?"

He turned from the fire, smiling in his disarming way. "I've known all the evening I was going to catch it from you, Amy. I saw it in your eye. But what can a fellow do? He must play up a bit. I haven't actually said anything."

"What does Mabel think?" There was a formidable directness about her. But he had his answer, his defence to what he supposed to be the whole indictment.

"Come now, be fair. I wanted to tell her—well, I wanted her to have a hint given her. I told the mater so, but the mater wouldn't hear of it. The bare idea sent her all—well, absolutely upset her."

The events of the day and the two evenings had affected Amy Ledstone.

"You wanted to tell her? Her? Which?"

"Good Lord, Amy!" He was knocked out. What a question to be asked in Woburn Square! "Which?" Had they both rights? Strange doctrine, indeed, for Woburn Square.

"I was speaking of Miss Thurseley, and I think you knew it."

"Oh, I knew it."

"Anything else isn't your business at all. I never understood why the pater told you."

"There are just two decent things for you to do, Godfrey—let Mabel alone or drop Mrs. Maxon."

His own feelings, most concisely put, most trenchantly interpreted! His vague consciousness that the thing came to that was crystallized into an ultimatum. Against this he could not maintain his peevish resentment at his sister's interference or his assumed prudishness over her talking about Winnie. The pretext of shame would not serve, and his weak nature turned for help to a stronger. She was sitting by the table, rigid, looking straight before her. He sat down by her, laying his pipe on the table.

"By Jove, you're right! I'm in an awful mess. Which is it to be, Amy?"

"Oh, that's not my business. But you needn't be a sneak to both of them, need you?"

He laid his hand on hers, but she drew hers away sharply. "You don't understand how I was led into it. I say, you're not going to—to give me away to Mabel, are you?"

"No. I'm afraid of father and mother. I believe I ought to, but I daren't."

"I say, above all things, for heaven's sake, don't think of that!"

"But you say you proposed it yourself, Godfrey."

He jumped up from his chair in an agony of restlessness. He had proposed it, but only as a thing to be rejected. He had proposed it, but that was weeks ago—when he had not been coming to Woburn Square for very long, and had not seen so much of Mabel Thurseley. The idea seemed quite different now. He stared ruefully at Amy. His entreaty, her reply, threw a cold, cruel light on the recent workings of his mind. He saw now where he was going, where he was being led and driven, by love, by scorn, by the world he had been persuaded to think himself strong enough to defy—his world, which had only one name for Winnie Maxon.

He was exasperated. Why did the two things rend him asunder, like wild horses?

"Well, what is it to be, Amy?" he asked again.

The maiden sister sat unmoved in her chair, her eyes set on the ugly brown paper on the wall opposite. Her voice came level, unimpassioned, with a suggestion of dull despair.

"What's the good of asking me, Godfrey? What do I know about it? Nobody has ever loved me. I've never even been in love myself. I don't know what people do when they're in love. I don't know how they feel. I suppose I've been awfully unkind to you?"

"Well, of course, a fellow isn't himself." He turned sharp round on her. "It was only to last as long as we both wanted—as long as we both wanted one another. O Lord, how can I talk about it, even to you?"

"You needn't mind that. I've seen her. I went to see her. I asked her if she knew anything about Mabel. She didn't. Does she now? I think her wonderful. Miles above you or me, really. Oh, I know she's—she's whatever daddy and mother would choose to call her. But you made her that—and you might as well play fair, Godfrey."

"I don't understand you, Amy. I thought you—of all people——How in the world did you come to go and see her? When?"

"One Sunday, when I knew you were here."

"She never said a word to me about—about Mabel Thurseley."

"She never would. I'm not taking her part. But I should like my brother to be a man."

"She's never told me that you came. I can't understand your going."

He was opposite to her now. She raised her eyes to his, smiling bitterly.

"Don't try. Still, she's a woman, and my brother's—friend."

"Oh, you don't know a thing about it!"

"I said so. I know it. That's how it is with girls like me. Girls! Oh, well! If I did know, I might be able to help. I'm not your enemy, really, Godfrey."

"Everybody makes it fearfully hard for me. I—I want to keep faith, Amy."

"You're not doing it."

He threw himself into the big arm-chair that flanked the grate and its dying fire. He broke out against Winnie in a feeble peevishness: "Why did she make me do it? Any fool could have seen it would never work!"

"You needn't have done it," she retorted mercilessly.

"Needn't have done it? Oh, you don't know anything about it, as you say. What could you know? If you did know, you'd understand how men—yes, and by George, women too—do things. Things they can't stand by, and yet want to, things that are impossible, and yet have been done and have to be reckoned with. That's the way it happens."

Full of despair, his voice had a new note of sincerity. Amy looked across the table at him with a long, scrutinizing gaze.

"I expect I haven't allowed for all of it," she said at last. "I expect I don't know how difficult it is." She rose, moved round the table, and sat on the arm of the big chair beside him. "I'm sorry if I've been unkind, dear. But"—she caressed his hair—"don't be unkind to her—not more than you can help."

"To Mabel?" He was looking up to her now, and whispering.

"Oh no," she smiled. "You're going to marry Mabel. You aren't married to Mrs. Maxon, you see." She kissed his brow. "Make it as easy as you can for Winnie."

"By God, I love Winnie!"

Again her hand smoothed and caressed his hair. "Yes, but you can't do it," she said. "I don't think I could. But mightn't you tell her you can't? She's got more courage than you think, Godfrey." She rose to her feet, rather abruptly. "You see, when she knows the truth about you, she won't care so much, perhaps."

Her brother made her no answer; he lay back in the big chair, staring at the dead fire. Nor did she seem to have any more to say to him. She had said a good deal in the whole conversation, and had summed up a large part of it in her last sentence. When Winnie knew all about him she might not care so much! Was that true—or was it the judgment of the maiden sister, who thought that love was dependent on esteem?

"I'm going to bed. I've been a wet blanket this Christmas, Godfrey."

"My Lord, what a Christmas!"

For the capital farce, and the merry dinner, the snapdragon, mistletoe, and jokes were all forgotten. The woman who knew nothing about the matter had set the matter in its true light. With another kiss, a half-articulate 'My dear!' and a sudden sob, she left him to the contemplation of it.