t come to us then?

STRANGER (with a touch of vanity). Well, I was getting on all right,
you know--and----

LADY PEMBURY. And then suddenly, after two years, you lost hope.

STRANGER. I lost my job.

LADY PEMBURY. Poor boy! And couldn't get another.

STRANGER (bitterly). It's a beast of a world if you're down. He's in
the gutter--kick him down--trample on him. Nobody wants him. That's
the way to treat them when they're down. Trample on 'em.

LADY PEMBURY. And so you came to your father to help you up again. To
help you out of the gutter.

STRANGER. That's right.

LADY PEMBURY (pleadingly). Ah, but give him a chance!

STRANGER. Now, look here, I've told you already that I'm not going to
have any of _that_ game.

LADY PEMBURY (shaking her head sadly). Foolish boy! You don't
understand. Give him a chance to help you out of the gutter.

STRANGER. Well, I'm----! Isn't that what I am doing?

LADY PEMBURY. No, no. You're asking him to trample you right down into
it, deeper and deeper into the mud and slime. I want you to let him
help you back to where you were two years ago--when you were proud and
hopeful.

STRANGER (looking at her in a puzzled way). I can't make out what your
game is. It's no good pretending you don't hate the sight of me--it
stands to reason you must.

LADY PEMBURY (smiling). But then women _are_ unreasonable, aren't
they? And I think it is only in fairy-stories that stepmothers are
always so unkind.

STRANGER (surprised). Stepmother!

LADY PEMBURY. Well, that's practically what I am, isn't it?
(Whimsically) I've never been a stepmother before. (Persuasively)
Couldn't you let me be proud of my stepson?

STRANGER. Well, you _are_ a one! . . . Do you mean to say that you and
your husband aren't going to have a row about this?

LADY PEMBURY. It's rather late to begin a row, isn't it, thirty years
after it's happened? . . . Besides, perhaps you aren't going to tell him
anything about it.

STRANGER. But what else have I come for except to tell him?

LADY PEMBURY. To tell _me_. . . . I asked you to give him a chance of
helping you out of your troubles, but I'd rather you gave _me_ the
chance. . . . You see, John would be very unhappy if he knew that I knew
this; and he would have to tell me, because when a man has been
happily married to anybody for twenty-eight years, he can't really
keep a secret from the other one. He pretends to himself that he can,
but he knows all the time what a