’I had rather, much rather, that Hughie did not go to Mrs. Abbott’s school.  Don’t get angry and call me foolish.  What I mean is, that I would rather teach him myself.  In your opinion I have neglected him, and I confess that you are right.  There now!  I shall give up my music; at all events, I shall not play again in public.  I have shown what I could do, and that’s enough.  You don’t like it —­ though you have never tried to show me why —­ and again I feel that you are right.  A professional life for me would mean, I see it now, the loss of things more precious.  I will give it up, and live quietly at home.  I will have regular hours for teaching Hughie.  If you prefer it, Pauline shall go, and I will take charge of him altogether.  If I do this, what need for us to remove?  The house is more comfortable than the new one at Gunnersbury; we are accustomed to it; and by being farther from London I shall have less temptation to gad about.  I know exactly what I am promising, and I feel I can do it, now that my mind is made up.

’Need I fear a refusal?  I can’t think so.  Give the matter your best thought, and see whether there are not several reasons on my side.  But, please, answer as soon as you can, for I shall be in suspense till I hear from you.

Alma signed herself ‘Yours ever affectionately’, but Harvey could find no trace of affection in the letter.  It astonished and annoyed him.  Of course, it could have but one explanation; Alma might as well have saved herself trouble by writing, in a line or two, that she disliked Mrs Abbott, and could not bear that the child should be taught by her.  He read through the pages again, and grew angry.  What right had she to make such a request as this, and in the tone of a demand?  Twice in the letter she asserted that she had a right, asserted it as if with some mysterious reference.  Had he sat down immediately to reply, Harvey would have written briefly forcibly; for, putting aside other grounds of irritation, there is nothing a man dislikes more than being called upon at last moment to upset elaborate and troublesome arrangements.  But he was obliged to postpone his answer for a few hours, and in the meantime he grew more tolerant of Alma’s feelings.  Had her objection come earlier, accompanied by the same proposals, he would have been inclined to listen; but things had gone too far.  He wrote, quite good-temperedly, but without shadow of wavering.  There was nothing sudden, he pointed out, in the step he was about to take; Alma had known it for months, and had acquiesced in it.  As for her music, he quite agreed with her that she would find it better in every way to abandon thoughts of a public career; and the fact of Hughie’s going to school for two or three hours a day would in no wise interfere with her wish to see more of him.  What her precise meaning was in saying that she had some ‘right’ to make this request, he declared himself unable to discover.  Was it a reproach?  If so, his conscience afforded him no light, and he hoped Alma would explain the words in a letter to him at Pinner.