"You think this marriage a very bad thing."

Mrs. Wayne pushed all her hair away from her temples.

"Oh, yes," she said, "it's a bad thing for the girl; but the worst is having Marty Burke put anything over. The district is absolutely under his thumb. I do wish, Mrs. Farron, you would get your husband to put the fear of G.o.d into him."

"My husband?"

"Yes; he works for your husband. He has charge of the loading and unloading of the trucks. He's proud of his job, and it gives him power over the laborers. He wouldn't want to lose his place. If your husband would send for him and say--" Mrs. Wayne hastily outlined the things Mr.

Farron might say.

"He works for Vincent," Adelaide repeated. It seemed to her an absolutely stupendous coincidence, and her imagination pictured the clash between them--the effort of Vincent to put the fear of G.o.d into this man. Would he be able to? Which one would win? Never before had she doubted the superior power of her husband; now she did. "I think it would be hard to put the fear of G.o.d into that young man," she said aloud.

"I do wish Mr. Farron would try."

"Try," thought Adelaide, "and fail?" Could she stand that? Was her whole relation to Vincent about to be put to the test? What weapons had he against Marty Burke? And if he had none, how stripped he would appear in her eyes!

"Won't you ask him, Mrs. Farron?"

Adelaide recoiled. She did not want to be the one to throw her glove among the lions.

"I don't think I understand well enough what it is you want. Why don't you ask him yourself?" She hesitated, knowing that no opportunity for this would offer unless she herself arranged it. "Why don't you come and dine with us to-night, and," she added more slowly, "bring your son?"

She had made the bait very attractive, and Mrs. Wayne did not refuse.

CHAPTER VI

As she drove home, Adelaide's whole being was stirred by the prospect of that conflict between Burke and her husband, and it was not until she saw Mathilde, pale with an hour of waiting, that she recalled the real object of her recent visit. Not, of course, that Adelaide was more interested in Marty Burke than in her daughter's future, but a t.i.tanic struggle fired her imagination more than a pitiful little romance. She felt a pang of self-reproach when she saw that Mr. Lanley had come to share the child's vigil, that he seemed to be suffering under an anxiety almost as keen as Mathilde's.

They did not have to question her; she threw out her hands, casting her m.u.f.f from her as she did so.

"Oh," she said, "I'm a weak, soft-hearted creature! I've asked them both to dine tonight."

Mathilde flung herself into her mother's arms.

"O Mama, how marvelous you are!" she exclaimed.

Over her daughter's shoulder Adelaide noted her father's expression, a stiffening of the mouth and a brightening of the eyes.

"Your grandfather disapproves of me, Mathilde," she said.

"He couldn't be so unkind," returned the girl.

"After all," said Mr. Lanley, trying to induce a slight scowl, "if we are not going to consent to an engagement--"

"But you are," said Mathilde.

"We are not," said her mother; "but there is no reason why we should not meet and talk it over like sensible creatures--talk it over here"--Adelaide looked lovingly around her own subdued room--"instead of five stories up. For really--" She stopped, running her eyebrows together at the recollection.

"But the flat is rather--rather comfortable when you get there," said Mr.

Lanley, suddenly becoming embarra.s.sed over his choice of an adjective.

Adelaide looked at him sharply.

"Dear Papa," she asked, "since when have you become an admirer of painted shelves and dirty rugs? And I don't doubt," she added very gently, "that for the same money they could have found something quite tolerable in the country."

"Perhaps they don't want to live in the country," said Mr. Lanley, rather sharply: "I'm sure there is nothing that you'd hate more, Adelaide."

She opened her dark eyes.

"But I don't have to choose between squalor here or--"

"Squalor!" said Mr. Lanley. "Don't be ridiculous!"

Mathilde broke in gently at this point:

"I think you must have liked Mrs. Wayne, Mama, to ask her to dine."

Adelaide saw an opportunity to exercise one of her important talents.

"Yes," she said. "She has a certain nave friendliness. Of course I don't advocate, after fifty, dressing like an Eton boy; I always think an elderly face above a turned-down collar--"

"Mama," broke in Mathilde, quietly, "would you mind not talking of Mrs.

Wayne like that? You know, she's Pete's mother."

Adelaide was really surprised.

"Why, my love," she answered, "I haven't said half the things I might say. I rather thought I was sparing your feelings. After all, when you see her, you will admit that she _does_ dress like an Eton boy."

"She didn't when I saw her," said Mr. Lanley.

Adelaide turned to her father.

"Papa, I leave it to you. Did I say anything that should have wounded anybody's susceptibilities?"

Mr. Lanley hesitated.

"It was the tone Mathilde did not like, I think."

Adelaide raised her shoulders and looked beautifully hurt.

"My tone?" she wailed.

"It hurt me," said Mathilde, laying her little hand on her heart.

Mr. Lanley smiled at her, and then, springing up, kissed her tenderly on the forehead. He said it was time for him to be going on.