'What was his opinion of the condition of things out there?' 'Mr. Ferrys' answer to your question was significant, Uncle George,' said Mrs. Roath impatiently.

'He used to be full of enthusiasm,' said Colonel Bertwald.

Yes, he was. A good many years ago."

'It is a good many years ago that I saw him last. He was making an immense deal of money.'

At immense cost to himself. But he had practically parted with most of his interests in South Africa before he died. He had wound up his affairs there and was coming home for good.'

Colonel Bertwald's fiery eyes expressed disapproval so plainly that Michael answered his unspoken thought.

'Not desertion, sir. His heart had always been set on entering English politics one day; but as you say he was making money, and his business instincts overpowered his ambition. But it dawned upon him suddenly, and, as it turned out, too late, that his life was slipping away, and his ambition unfulfilled. So he determined to cut himself free from the country he'd worked in. He wrote me he should do better service in Parliament, and he was as keen on work at fifty-seven as he'd ever been.'

'I read a good deal about him, in the papers, when he died. A wonderful career!'

'His father's was even more wonderful. Both were self-made men; but my grandfather, who was only a ship's surgeon, laid the foundation that my father built on.'

' And what are you going to do?'

Michael looked from him to Mrs. Roath, and shrugged his shoulders very slightly. Edith's face was hidden; her arm rested on the mantelpiece, and she was looking into the fire, which had been lighted in defiance of all Colonel Bertwald's rules, because his niece found the day damp and chilly.

'You don't mean to say that at your age, and with your command of wealth, and your intelligence-you look intelligent enough—' said Colonel Bertwald indignantly,' that you'll sit down and content yourself with spending the money your father and grandfather made? Why the deuce can't you carry out your father's ambition? We want fresh blood, young blood

'Above all, we want money,' murmured Mrs. Roath, but below her breath; and her choleric uncle did not catch the purport of her

murmur.

'If you're half as clever as my niece here and her daughter

make you out to be-' said the septuagenarian enthusiast, eagerly; and was interrupted by Mrs. Roath.

'Dear Uncle George, what business is it of ours?'

'Everybody's business is my business. I'm an old man, and I knew his father,' said Colonel Bertwald, crossly. I'm not going to apologise to the lad for showing my interest in him.'

'I hope not, sir,' said Michael, and he laughed frankly.

Besides, how do you know he's not on our side?' said Mrs. Roath, with that softly mocking smile.

'I wonder you do not blush when you say our side, Elspeth. When in the memory of man has a Bertwald been anything but a reformer ?"

Edith and I are Roaths. And I am a fine old crusted Tory. Indeed, if I could have my way we should return to Absolute Monarchy. I would rather be ruled by a man than a mob,' she said lightly.

Michael intervened hastily, for Edith raised her head, and her eyes signalled a command.

'I know scarcely anything of English politics,' he said. 'I was educated out of England; and since I left college I have been a wanderer over the face of the earth. As for my qualifications, I have none; unless being a bit of a linguist would be of any use.'

'Use! of course it's of use; opens up the literature of other countries, which to most men's minds are closed treasure-houses,' said Colonel Bertwald, emphatically. But it's time you started your career. What's your age?'

'Very good, very good. Not too old and not too young. Think it over,' said the old gentleman, and I think you'll see that it's every man's duty to be a good citizen. If I had my way the drones. should be put to death.'

'I suppose I am a drone,' said Michael, with a deprecatory

twinkle.

'You needn't be, you needn't be. All your life before you,' said the old soldier stoutly, yet with a note of envy in his voice. 'Youth, health, wealth-well, well! I've had my day, but I would I could inspire the young ones with half my energy. Half my energy. The knowledge of what they want, and the power to express it clearly and simply. People drown their meaning in words. Avoid that in speaking. You look as if you had the gift of the gab.'

Michael and Edith exchanged a swift and fleeting smile.

'Dear Uncle George, you have not given him much chance to prove it.'

'He'll get his chance fast enough. Let your motto be Simplicity, my boy. As one grows older and wiser, one combs out one's ideas in private, until they become clear, and above all very simple. Great truths are always simple. Only fools are impressed by involvedness and mistake it for profundity. These also mistake lucidity for foolishness, with some show of reason, since they cannot believe that that which even they can understand may yet be wisdom. And remember that originality always excites the ridicule of the many.' Colonel Bertwald's eyes glowed beneath his snow-white brows, and his knotted hand trembled as he raised it and shook his finger at Michael. Despise ridicule. Have the courage of your convictions.'

'And if I have no convictions?'

6

'Go and get some, sir. I don't know what you modern young men are made of,' he groaned. However, if you've lost the power of thinking for yourself, the next best thing is to let someone think for you.' His sanguine spirit recovered. At least you can follow your leader loyally and faithfully. Well, well!' he stopped short, warned by a certain suppressed impatience in his niece's manner. 'You'll bear my words in mind, and when you want introductions-to make a beginning-come and see me, and I shall be at your service. I've lived in London all my life, and know most people; and if you've lived abroad all your life, why, that in itself might help you a bit.'

Michael thanked him, and he hurried out of the room, full of importance and energy.

'He tires me more than anyone in the world,' said Mrs. Roath, closing her eyes wearily.

'A talk with Mr. Ferrys will rest you, Mummy,' said Edith, and I am going out.'

'Why should you go out, my darling?

'It is easier to talk à deux than à trois,' said Edith, with perfect

simplicity; and Mr. Ferrys and I said our say yesterday. I daresay I shall be back before he is gone.'

She vanished, and Michael once more drew a low seat beside Mrs. Roath's sofa.

The false excitement which had burned in her cheeks and lighted her dark eyes during their last meeting at Clode had all died away,

and she looked very pale and frail, with the great circles about her black-fringed eyes heavily accentuated.

With his quickness for observing detail, Michael perceived that the individual taste that distinguished her had made a frantic effort to cope with the ugliness of conventional mourning. She looked, in consequence, even less like the widow than she had looked like the wife of an old-fashioned English High Church Tory squire. Though her chiffon draperies were as black, they were also as light, as soot; falling over an undersheath of white, which emerged spotless at neck and wrist.

The slender form was still outlined by the favourite sleeveless jacket; but the dull black cloth which formed its substance was edged with faint silver.

The pearls she loved gleamed dimly about her dusky throat and in her delicate ears. The glory of the sunshine had faded, and her day of vivid glow and colour was over-past; but there remained the subtle attractive atmosphere of the night of her sorrow; a suggestion aided by that soft moonlit darkness of drapery, the jet of her hair, the starry brilliance of her eyes, and the pallor of her elfin face.

Michael said to himself that this woman would never lose the subtle charm that could neither be defined nor eluded. It would cling to her until the day of her death; that mystery of attraction which, like a spirit made visible, looked through her eyes and arrested the attention of the passer-by.

He noticed, on the usual elbow-table that held her cigarette-box and ash-tray, and gold cup filled with violets, that the exquisitely bound volumes of poetry and philosophy had given place to a large old shabby leather Bible, with faded ribbon markers, which he recognised as having belonged to Mr. Roath.

He looked at the little frail mourner upon the sofa, and as he looked he was filled with compassion, and she knew that he was filled with compassion.

1

'Edith is going back to work,' she said suddenly.

'What will you do without her?'

'I shall be better without her. The thought that I was spoiling her life, and letting her waste her precious youth and strength on me when her heart and soul are in her work, would kill me outright,' said Mrs. Roath, vehemently. Then with one of her sudden changes of mood she began to laugh. If you could read the reams of advice I've had from maiden aunts and childless cousins about my daughter when Edith went to school, when

she went to college, when she went to the hospital; all urging me to keep her at home to be a comfort to me pointing out that she could keep house for me. As if any woman would be such a fool as to relinquish the reins of her household before she was bedridden. I haven't sympathy with all modern developments, but when I remember what the lives of some of my contemporaries have been! Sometimes three or four able-bodied women, sitting round waiting for husbands who didn't come; taking it in turns to arrange the flowers, and order the dinner for their mamma, who could have done it all so much better for herself; and who might have enjoyed calling on her friends if custom hadn't dictated that a daughter must come with her and sit listening to the conversation that would have been interesting but for that embarrassing young presence. Thank heaven that the girls, even of our own class, may "live their own lives"-as the jargon of the day runs a little more naturally now.'

'But surely you would have a young giri sheltered by her mother's care?' said Michael, smiling.

'I don't know,' said Mrs. Roath. Under normal conditions youth seeks youth, and playmates naturally become lovers. Nature intended both lads and lasses to leave their parents and fly to their chosen mates and equals, while they were young. If modern artificial custom prevents this, yet it doesn't make the prolonged companionship of mother and daughter, however delightful, an equal nor even a natural one. The normal mother may cling to her child, but the normal child openly or secretly craves liberty during her youth; however glad she may be, later on, to return to her old home. Motherliness is often only another name for tyranny.' 'Yes. That I have observed,' said Michael.

'In our own small neighbourhood at Clode I have seen a quiet girl, who read and thought and wanted to be let alone, forced on to the treadmill of society, because her mother had been forced to it in her youth; and a rosy country maid who loved the outdoor life to which she had been bred, and who would have been an ideal wife for a plain sporting squire or parson-taken to London year after year, fretting and bored and losing her roses, and at last falling a victim to her mother's worldliness, and joining in her schemes for the entrapping of eldest sons. Pah! they are dumb, these young girls, and have no one to speak for them, but I watched the farce for years; and when the time came I would not rush to London and take a furnished house and plot for invitations from