ire himself."

"Some princely families," I said, "were founded by men who have done that
very thing. The great Condottieri, you know."

It was in an almost tempestuous tone that she made me observe that we
were not living in the fifteenth century. She gave me also to understand
with some spirit that there was no question here of founding a family.
Her son was very far from being the first of the name. His importance
lay rather in being the last of a race which had totally perished, she
added in a completely drawing-room tone, "in our Civil War."

She had mastered her irritation and through the glass side of the room
sent a wistful smile to his address, but I noticed the yet unextinguished
anger in her eyes full of fire under her beautiful white eyebrows. For
she was growing old! Oh, yes, she was growing old, and secretly weary,
and perhaps desperate.

CHAPTER III

Without caring much about it I was conscious of sudden illumination. I
said to myself confidently that these two people had been quarrelling all
the morning. I had discovered the secret of my invitation to that lunch.
They did not care to face the strain of some obstinate, inconclusive
discussion for fear, maybe, of it ending in a serious quarrel. And so
they had agreed that I should be fetched downstairs to create a
diversion. I cannot say I felt annoyed. I didn't care. My perspicacity
did not please me either. I wished they had left me alone--but nothing
mattered. They must have been in their superiority accustomed to make
use of people, without compunction. From necessity, too. She
especially. She lived by her wits. The silence had grown so marked that
I had at last to raise my eyes; and the first thing I observed was that
Captain Blunt was no longer to be seen in the garden. Must have gone
indoors. Would rejoin us in a moment. Then I would leave mother and son
to themselves.

The next thing I noticed was that a great mellowness had descended upon
the mother of the last of his race. But these terms, irritation,
mellowness, appeared gross when applied to her. It is impossible to give
an idea of the refinement and subtlety of all her transformations. She
smiled faintly at me.

"But all this is beside the point. The real point is that my son, like
all fine natures, is a being of strange contradictions which the trials
of life have not yet reconciled in him. With me it is a little
different. The trials fell mainly to my s