"That's a pity," said I. "You should talk to him of Heaven, or pigs, or
Babylonic cuneiform--anything but Lola Brandt. You ought to go to work
on a different system."

"But I haven't a system at all," cried the poor lady. "How was I to
foresee that my only son was going to fall in love with a circus rider?
These are contingencies in life for which one, with all the thought in
the world, can make no provision. I had arranged, as you know, that
he should marry Maisie Ellerton, as charming a girl as ever there was.
Isn't she? And an independent fortune besides."

"A rosebud wrapped in a gold leaf," I murmured.

"Now he's breaking the child's heart----"

"There was never any engagement between them, I am sure of that," I
remarked.

"There wasn't. But I gave her to understand it was a settled
affair--merely a question of Dale speaking. And, instead of speaking,
he will have nothing to do with her, and spends all his time--and,
I suppose, though I don't like to refer to it, all his money--in the
society of this unmentionable woman."

"Is she really so--so red as she is painted?" I asked.

"She isn't painted at all. That's where her artful and deceitful devilry
comes in----"

"I suppose Dale," said I, "declares her to be an angel of light and