’Don’t be angry with me, Frank; you can’t but know that the fate of an only son must be a subject of anxiety to a mother.’  Ah! how singularly altered was Lady Arabella’s tone since first she had taken upon herself to discuss the marriage prospects of her son!  Then how autocratic had she been as she went him away, bidding him, with full command, to throw himself into the golden embraces of Miss Dunstable!  But now, how humble, as she came suppliantly to his room, craving that she might have leave to whisper into his ear a mother’s anxious fears!  Frank had laughed at her stern behests, though he had half obeyed them; but he was touched to the heart by her humility.

He drew his chair nearer to her, and took her by the hand.  But she, disengaging hers, parted the hair from off his forehead, and kissed his brow.  ‘Oh, Frank,’ she said, ’I have been so proud of you, am still so proud of you.  It will send me to my grave if I see you sink below your proper position.  Not that it will be your fault.  I am sure it will not be your fault.  Only circumstanced as you are, you should be doubly, trebly, careful.  If your father had not—­’

‘Do not speak against my father.’

’No, Frank; I will not—­no, I will not; not another word.  And now, Frank—­’

Before we go on we must say one word further as to Lady Arabella’s character.  It will probably be said that she was a consummate hypocrite; but at the present moment she was not hypocritical.  She did love her son; was anxious—­very, very anxious for him; was proud of him, and almost admired the obstinacy which so vexed her inmost soul.  No grief would be to her so great as that of seeing him sink below what she conceived to be his position.  She was as genuinely motherly, in wishing that he should marry money, as another woman might be in wishing to see her son a bishop; or as the Spartan matron, who preferred that her offspring should return on his shield, to hearing that he had come back whole in limb but tainted in honour.  When Frank spoke of a profession, she instantly thought of what Lord de Courcy might do for him.  If he would not marry money, he might, at any rate, be attache at an embassy.  A profession—­hard work, as a doctor, or as an engineer—­would, according to her ideas, degrade him; cause him to sink below his proper position; but to dangle at a foreign court, to make small talk at evening parties of a lady ambassadress, and occasionally, perhaps, to write demi-official notes containing demi-official tittle-tattle; this would be in proper accordance with the high honour of a Gresham of Greshamsbury.

We may not admire the direction taken by Lady Arabella’s energy on behalf of her son, but that energy was not hypocritical.

‘And now, Frank—­’ She looked wistfully into his face as she addressed him, as though half afraid to go on, and begging that he would receive with complaisance whatever she found herself forced to say.