Mrs. Boyce had certainly grown pale.

“I supposed you would ask sooner or later,” she said in a low determined voice, with what to Marcella was a quite new note of reality in it.  “Probably Mr. Raeburn told you—­but you must of course have guessed it long ago—­that society does not look kindly on us—­and has its reasons.  I do not deny in the least that it has its reasons.  I do not accuse anybody, and resent nothing.  But the question with me has always been, Shall I accept pity?  I have always been able to meet it with a No!  You are very different from me—­but for you also I believe it would be the happiest answer.”

The eyes of both met—­the mother’s full of an indomitable fire which had for once wholly swept away her satiric calm of every day; the daughter’s troubled and miserable.

“I want friends!” said Marcella, slowly.  “There are so many things I want to do here, and one can do nothing if every one is against you.  People would be friends with you and me—­and with papa too,—­through us.  Some of them wish to be kind”—­she added insistently, thinking of Aldous Raeburn’s words and expression as he bent to her at the gate—­“I know they do.  And if we can’t hold our heads high because—­because of things in the past—­ought we to be so proud that we won’t take their hands when they stretch them out—­when they write so kindly and nicely as this?”

And she laid her fingers almost piteously on the note upon her knee.

Mrs. Boyce tilted the silver urn and replenished the tea-pot.  Then with a delicate handkerchief she rubbed away a spot from the handle of a spoon near her.

“You shall go,” she said presently—­“you wish it—­then go—­go by all means.  I will write to Miss Raeburn and send you over in the carriage.  One can put a great deal on health—­mine is quite serviceable in the way of excuses.  I will try and do you no harm, Marcella.  If you have chosen your line and wish to make friends here—­very well—­I will do what I can for you so long as you do not expect me to change my life—­for which, my dear, I am grown too crotchety and too old.”

Marcella looked at her with dismay and a yearning she had never felt before.

“And you will never go out with me, mamma?”

There was something childlike and touching in the voice, something which for once suggested the normal filial relation.  But Mrs. Boyce did not waver.  She had long learnt perhaps to regard Marcella as a girl singularly well able to take care of herself; and had recognised the fact with relief.

“I will not go to the Court with you anyway,” she said, daintily sipping her tea—­“in your interests as well as mine.  You will make all the greater impression, my dear, for I have really forgotten how to behave.  Those cards shall be properly returned, of course.  For the rest—­let no one disturb themselves till they must.  And if I were you, Marcella, I would hardly discuss the family affairs any more—­with Mr. Raeburn or anybody else.”