arms. He felt a quick sobbing breath pass through her; then she pushed
him lightly away, and, putting up the slim, pink-nailed hand of which she
was so proud, she patted him on the cheek.

"There--go along! I don't like that coat of yours, you know. I told you
so the other day. If your figure weren't so good, you'd positively look
badly dressed in it. You should try another man."

Tressady hailed a hansom outside, and drove back to Brook Street. On the
way his eyes saw little of the crowded streets. So far, he had had no
personal experience of death. His father had died suddenly while he was
at Oxford, and he had lost no other near relation or friend. Strange!
this grave, sudden sense that all was changed, that his careless,
half-contemptuous affection for his mother could never again be what it
had been. Supposing, indeed, her story was all true! But in the case of a
character like Lady Tressady's, there are for long, recurrent,
involuntary scepticisms on the part of the bystander. It seems
impossible, unfitting, to grant to such persons _le beau role_ they
claim. It outrages a certain ideal instinct, even, to be asked to believe
that they too can yield, in their measure, precisely the same tragic
stuff as the hero or the saint.

Letty was at home, just about to share her lunch with Harding Watton, who
had dropped in. Hearing her husband's voice, she came out to the
stairhead to speak to him.

But after a minute or two George dashed down again to his study, that he
might write a hurried note to a middle-aged cousin of his mother's,
asking her to go round to Warwick Square early in the afternoon, and
making excuses for Letty, who was "very much engaged."