"Her mother was of good family, I believe."

"You believe!" with ineffable disgust. "And have you not even taken the trouble to make sure? How late in life you have developed a trusting disposition!"

"One might do worse than put faith in Mona," says, Geoffrey, quickly.

"She is worthy of all trust. And she is quite charming,--quite. And the very prettiest girl I ever saw. You know you adore beauty, mother,"--insinuatingly,--"and she is sure to create a _furor_ when presented."

"Presented!" repeats Lady Rodney, in a dreadful tone. "And would you present a low Irish girl to your sovereign? And just now, too, when the whole horrid nation is in such disrepute."

"You mustn't call her names, you know; she is my wife," says Rodney, gently, but with dignity,--"the woman I love and honor most on earth.

When you see her you will understand how the word 'low' could never apply to her. She looks quite correct, and is perfectly lovely."

"You are in love," returns his mother, contemptuously. "At present you can see no fault in her; but later on when you come to compare her with the other women in your own set, when you see them together, I only hope you will see no difference between them, and feel no regret."

She says this, however, as though it is her one desire he may know regret, and feel a difference that be overwhelming.

"Thank you," says Geoffrey, a little dryly, accepting her words as they are said, not as he feels they are meant.

Then there is another pause, rather longer than the last, Lady Rodney trifles with the fan in a somewhat excited fashion, and Geoffrey gazes, man-like, at his boots. At last his mother breaks the silence.

"Is she--is she noisy?" she asks, in a faltering tone.

"Well, she can laugh, if you mean that," says Geoffrey somewhat superciliously. And then, as though overcome with some recollection in which the poor little criminal who is before the bar bore a humorous part, he lays his head down upon the mantelpiece and gives way to hearty laughter himself.

"I understand," says Lady Rodney, faintly, feeling her burden is "greater than she can bear." "She is, without telling, a young woman who laughs uproariously, at everything,--no matter what,--and takes good care her vulgarity shall be read by all who run."

Now, I can't explain why but I never knew a young man who was not annoyed when the girl he loved was spoken of as a "young woman."

Geoffrey takes it as a deliberate insult.

"There is a limit to everything,--even my patience," he says, not looking at his mother. "Mona is myself, and even from you, my mother, whom I love and reverence, I will not take a disparaging word of her."

There is a look upon his face that recalls to her his dead father, and Lady Rodney grows silent. The husband of her youth had been dear to her, in a way, until age had soured him, and this one of all his three children most closely resembled him, both in form and in feature; hence, perhaps, her love for him. She lowers her eyes, and a slow blush--for the blood rises with difficulty in the old--suffuses her face.

And then Geoffrey, marking all this, is vexed within himself, and, going over to her, lays his arm once more around her neck, and presses his cheek to hers.

"Don't let us quarrel," he says, lovingly. And this time she returns his caress very fondly, though she cannot lose sight of the fact that he has committed a social error not to be lightly overlooked.

"Oh, Geoffrey, how could you do it?" she says, reproachfully, alluding to his marriage,--"you whom I have so loved. What would your poor father have thought had he lived to see this unhappy day? You must have been mad."

"Well, perhaps I was," says Geoffrey, easily: "we are all mad on one subject or another, you know; mine may be Mona. She is an excuse for madness, certainly. At all events, I know I am happy, which quite carries out your theory, because, as Dryden says,--

'There is a pleasure sure In being mad, which none but madmen know.'

I wish you would not take it so absurdly to heart. I haven't married an heiress, I know; but the whole world does not hinge on money."

"There was Violet," says Lady Rodney.

"I wouldn't have suited her at all," says Geoffrey. "I should have bored her to extinction, even if she had condescended to look at me, which I am sure she never would."

He is not sure of anything of the kind, but he says it nevertheless, feeling he owes so much to Violet, as the conversation has drifted towards her, and he feels she is placed--though unknown to herself--in a false position.

"I wish you had never gone to Ireland!" says Lady Rodney, deeply depressed. "My heart misgave me when you went, though I never antic.i.p.ated such a climax to my fears. What possessed you to fall in love with her?"

"'She is pretty to walk with, And witty to talk with, And pleasant, too, to think on.'"

quotes Geoffrey, lightly, "Are not these three reasons sufficient? If not, I could tell you a score of others. I may bring her down to see you?"

"It will be very bitter to me," says Lady Rodney.

"It will not: I promise you that; only do not be too prejudiced in her disfavor. I want you to know her,--it is my greatest desire,--or I should not say another word after your last speech, which is not what I hoped to hear from you. Leighton, as you know, is out of repair, but if you will not receive us we can spend the rest of the winter at Rome or anywhere else that may occur to us."

"Of course you must come here," says Lady Rodney, who is afraid of the county and what it will say if it discovers she is at loggerheads with her son and his bride. But there is no welcome in her tone. And Geoffrey, greatly discouraged, yet determined to part friends with her for Mona's sake,--and trusting to the latter's sweetness to make all things straight in the future,--after a few more desultory remarks takes his departure, with the understanding on both sides that he and his wife are to come to the Towers on the Friday following to take up their quarters there until Leighton Hall is ready to receive them.

With mingled feelings he quits his home, and all the way up to London in the afternoon train weighs with himself the momentous question whether he shall or shall not accept the unwilling invitation to the Towers, wrung from his mother.

To travel here and there, from city to city and village to village, with Mona, would be a far happier arrangement. But underlying all else is a longing that the wife whom he adores and the mother whom he loves should be good friends.

Finally, he throws up the mental argument, and decides on letting things take their course, telling himself it will be a simple matter to leave the Towers at any moment, should their visit there prove unsatisfactory.

At the farthest, Leighton must be ready for them in a month or so.

Getting back to the Grosvenor, he runs lightly up the stairs to the sitting-room, and, opening the door very gently,--bent in a boyish fashion on giving her a "rise,"--enters softly, and looks around for his darling.

At the farthest end of the room, near a window, lying back in an arm-chair, lies Mona, sound asleep.

One hand is beneath her cheek,--that is soft and moist as a child's might be in innocent slumber,--the other is thrown above her head. She is exquisite in her _abandon_, but very pale, and her breath comes unevenly.

Geoffrey, stooping over to wake her with a kiss, marks all this, and also that her eyelids are tinged with pink, as though from excessive weeping.

Half alarmed, he lays his hand gently on her shoulder, and, as she struggles quickly into life again, he draws her into his arms.

"Ah, it is you!" cries she, her face growing glad again.

"Yes; but you have been crying, darling! What has happened?"

"Oh, nothing," says Mona, flushing. "I suppose I was lonely. Don't mind me. Tell me all about yourself and your visit."

"Not until you tell me what made you cry."

"Sure you know I'd tell you if there was anything to tell," replies she, evasively.

"Then do so," returns he, quite gravely, not to be deceived by her very open attempts at dissimulation. "What made you unhappy in my absence?"

"If you must know, it is this," says Mona, laying her hand in his and speaking very earnestly. "I am afraid I have done you an injury in marrying you!"

"Now, that is the first unkind thing you have ever said to me," retorts he.

"I would rather die than be unkind to you," says Mona, running her fingers with a glad sense of appropriation through his hair. "But this is what I mean; your mother will never forgive your marriage; she will not love me, and I shall be the cause of creating dissension between her and you." Again tears fill her eyes.

"But there you are wrong. There need be no dissensions; my mother and I are very good friends, and she expects us both to go to the Towers on Friday next."