“Tessie,” says Margaret sharply, “if you persist in this matter, and bring it to the conclusion you have in view, do you know what will happen?  You will make your only child miserable!  I warn you of that.”  Miss Knollys’ voice is almost solemn.

“You talk as if Maurice was the only person in the world to be made miserable,” says Lady Rylton, leaning back in her chair and bursting into tears—­at all events, it must be supposed it is tears that are going on behind the little lace fragment pressed to her eyes.  “Am not I ten times more miserable?  I, who have to give my only son—­as” (sobbing) “you most admirably describe it, Margaret—­to such a girl as that!  Good heavens!  What can his sufferings be to mine?” She wipes her eyes daintily, and sits up again.  “You hurt me so, dear Margaret,” she says plaintively, “but I’m sure you do not mean it.”

“No, no, of course,” says Miss Knollys, as civilly as she can.  She is feeling a little disgusted.

“And as for this affair—­objectionable as the girl is, still one must give and take a little when one’s fortunes are at the ebb.  And I will save my dearest Maurice at all risks if I can, no matter what grief it costs me.  Who am I”—­with a picturesque sigh—­“that I should interfere with the prospects of my child?  And this girl!  If Maurice can be persuaded to have her——­”

“My dear Tessie, what a word!” says Margaret, rising, with a distinct frown.  “Has he only to ask, then, and have?”

“Beyond doubt,” says Lady Rylton insolently, waving her fan to and fro, “if he does it in the right way.  In all my experience, my dear Margaret, I have never known a woman to frown upon a man who was as handsome, as well-born, as chic as Maurice!  Even though the man might be a—­well”—­smiling and lifting her shoulders—­“it’s a rude word, but—­well, a very devil!”

She looks deliberately at Margaret over her fan, who really appears in this dull light nearly as young as she is.  The look is a cruel one, hideously cruel.  Even Marian Bethune, whose bowels of compassion are extraordinary small, changes colour, and lets her red-brown eyes rest on the small woman lounging in the deep chair with a rather murderous gaze.

Yet Lady Rylton smiles on, enjoying the changes in Margaret’s face.  It is a terrible smile, coming from so fragile a creature.

Margaret’s face has grown white, but she answers coldly and with deliberation.  All that past horrible time—­her lover, his unworthiness, his desertion—­all her young, young life lies once more massacred before her.

“The women who give in to such fascination, such mere outward charms, are fools!” says she with a strength that adorns her.

“Oh, come!  Come now, dearest Margaret,” says her aunt, with the gayest of little laughs, “would you call yourself a fool?  Why, remember, your own dear Harold was——­”

“Pray spare me!” says Miss Knollys, in so cold, so haughty, so commanding a tone, that even Lady Rylton sinks beneath it.  She makes an effort to sustain her position and laughs lightly, but for all that she lets her last sentence remain a fragment.