"Take that little wayward child into your life and mould her."

"Here, one moment, mater: let me get the full force of your idea. You want ME to MOULD Margaret?"

"Yes, dear."

"Ha!" he laughed uneasily. Then said decidedly: "No, mater, no. I can do most things, but as a moulder--oh, no. Let Ethel do it--if she'll stay, that is."

"Alaric, my dear--I mean to take her really into your life 'to have and to hold.'" And she looked pleadingly at him through her tear-dimmed eyes.

"But, I don't want to hold her, mater!" reasoned her son.

"It would be the saving of her," urged the old lady. "That's all very well, but what about me?"

"It would be the saving of us all!" she insisted significantly. But Alaric was still obtuse. "Now, how would my holding and moulding Margaret save us?" The old lady placed her cards deliberately, on the table as she said sententiously: "She would stay with us here--if you were--engaged to her!" The shock had cone. His mother's terrible alternative was now before him in all its naked horror. A shiver ran through him. The thought of a man, with a future as brilliant as his, being blighted at the outset by such a misalliance. He felt the colour leave his face. He knew he was ghastly pale. The little arbour seemed to close in on him and stifle him. He could scarcely breathe. He murmured, his eyes half closed, as if picturing some vivid nightmare: "Engaged! Don't, mother, please." He trembled again: "Good lord!

Engaged to that tomboy!" The thought seemed to strike him to the very core of his being. He who might ally himself with anyone sacrificing his hopes of happiness and advancement with a child of the earth.

"Don't, mother!" he repeated in a cry of entreaty.

"She has the blood of the Kingsnorths!" reminded, Mrs. Chichester. "It is pretty well covered up in O'Connell Irish," replied Alaric bitterly.

"Please don't say any more, mater. You have upset me for the day.

Really, you have for the whole day." But his mother was not to be shaken so easily in her determination. She went on:

"She has the breeding of my sister Angela, dear."

"You wouldn't think it to watch her and listen to her. Now, once and for all" and he tried to pa.s.s his mother and go into the garden.

There was no escape. Mrs. Chichester held him firmly:

"She will have five thousand pounds a year when she is twenty-one!"

She looked the alarmed youth straight in the eyes. She was fighting for her own. She could not bear to think of parting with this home where she had lived so happily with her husband, and where her two children were born and reared. Even though Peg was not of the same caste, much could be done with her. Once accept her into the family and the rest would be easy.

As she looked piercingly into Alaric's eyes, he caught the full significance of the suggestion. His lips pursed to whistle--but no sound came through them. He muttered hoa.r.s.ely, as though he were signing away his right to happiness.

"Five thousand pounds a year! Five thousand of the very best!" Mrs.

Chichester took the slowly articulated words in token of acceptance. He would do it! She knew he would! Always ready to rise to a point of honour and to face a duty or confront a danger, he was indeed her son.

She took him in her arms and pressed his reluctant and shrinking body to her breast.

"Oh, my boy!" she wailed joyfully. "My dear, dear boy!"

Alaric disengaged himself alertly.

"Here, half a minute, mater. Half a minute, please: One can't burn all one's boats like that, without a cry for help."

"Think what it would mean, dear! Your family preserved, and a brand s.n.a.t.c.hed from the burning!"

"That's just it. It's all right savin' the family. Any cove'll do that at a pinch. But I do not see myself as a 'brand-s.n.a.t.c.her' Besides, I am not ALTOGETHER at liberty."

"What?" cried his mother.

"Oh, I've not COMMITTED myself to anything. But I've been three times to hear that wonderful woman speak--once on the PLATFORM! And people are beginning to talk. She thinks no end of me. Sent me a whole lot of stuff last week--'ADVANCED LITERATURE' she calls it. I've got 'em all upstairs. Wrote every word of 'em herself. Never saw a woman who can TALK and WRITE as she can. And OUTSIDE of all that I'm afraid I've more or less ENCOURAGED her. And there you are--the whole thing in a nutsh.e.l.l."

"It would unite our blood, Alaric," the fond mother insisted.

"Oh, hang our blood! I beg your pardon, mater, but really I can't make our blood the FIRST thing."

"It would settle you for life, dear," she suggested after a pause.

"I'd certainly be settled all right," in a despairing tone.

"Think what it would mean, Alaric."

"I am, mater. I'm thinking--and thinking awfully hard. Now, just a moment. Don't let either of us talk. Just let us think. I know how much is at stake for the family, and YOU realise how much is at stake for ME, don't you?"

"Indeed I do. And if I didn't think you would be happy I would not allow it--indeed I wouldn't."

Alaric thought for a few moments.

The result of this mental activity took form and substance as follows:

"She is not half-bad-lookin'--at times--when she's properly dressed."

"I've seen her look almost beautiful!" cried Mrs. Chichester.

Alaric suddenly grew depressed.

"Shockin' temper, mater!" and he shook his head despondently.

"That would soften under the restraining hand of affection!" reasoned his mother.

"She would have to dress her hair and drop DOGS. I will not have a dog all over the place, and I do like tidiness in women. Especially their hair. In that I would have to be obeyed."

"The woman who LOVES always OBEYS!" cried his mother.

"Ah! There we have it!" And Alaric sprang up and faced the old lady.

"There we have it! DOES she LOVE me?"

Mrs. Chichester looked fondly at her only son and answered:

"How could she be NEAR you for the last month and NOT love you?"

Alaric nodded:

"Of course there is that. Now, let me see--just get a solid grip on the whole thing. IF she LOVES me--and taking all things into consideration--for YOUR sake and darling ETHEL'S and for my--that is--"

He suddenly broke off, took his mother's hand between both of his and pressed it encouragingly, and with the courage of hopefulness, he said: