?" she asked with a freezing glare.

"What? No, I shouldn't think so."

"I found _your wife_," she said in a low hissing voice, as they passed
through the hall where there was a large looking-glass--Romer's
attention wandered--"within an inch of that young man's face, putting
ear-rings in his ears!"

"Well, she couldn't put them in a mile off," said Romer absently.

He was now frankly turning his back on his mother, and staring at his
face in the glass.

"Hang it all! I don't look so bad, do I?"

"You look a gentleman," she answered coldly; "any son of mine must look
a gentleman. Of course, you look ridiculous--and, as far as that goes,
you _are_ ridiculous; but that doesn't matter quite so much as long as
you look a gentleman."

"Oh, rot!"

Romer was trying to move a patch from one corner of his eye to the
other.

"But as to Harry de Freyne?... And shall you allow your wife to dance
with him in that costume?"

"Of course--why not? And--_doesn't_ Valentia look--jolly?"

"I think the scarlet with her golden hair is rather too--striking," she
answered spitefully.

"Oh, _she's_ all right!"

"I think you're all mad!" she answered as she reached the door.

The servant opened it.

"Oh, we're all right. Good night, mother. You'll be late for the
Trott-Hellyers."

Drawing her cloak over her narrow shoulders, Mrs. Wyburn stepped angrily
into the brougham.

Although it was only three doors from her son's house, she would not for
the world have walked.

When she arrived there, still in a very bad temper at all she had seen,
she nevertheless boasted to her neighbour about how remarkably
distinguished and handsome her son and daughter-in-law had looked in
costume, and of their success, charm, perfect domestic happiness, and
importance and perfection generally.

She succeeded in depressing the fossils on both sides of her, but they
smiled at each other, indulgent to the feminine weakness of so amiable
and devoted a mother.

CHAPTER IX

A CELEBRITY AT HOME

Miss Luscombe lived with her mother in a species of tank, or rather in a
flat that gave that impression because it was in the basement. It was
dark, and such glimpses as they had of people passing on the pavement
were extremely odd; it seemed a procession of legs and skirts, like
something in a pantomime or a cinematograph.

The Luscombes lived, as it were, beneath the surface; but that did not
prevent their being very much _dans le mouvemen