tween my mother and myself.

CHAPTER VI

IN WHICH IS RELATED A CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER

Mother was better in the morning. I ascertained that fact from James,
the butler. Marie, the Frenchwoman, seemed desirous of telling me
nothing and--I thought--wished to keep me out of my mother's room.

But I hung about the house all the morning and, after the doctor had
come and gone (and this time, I was glad to see, with a more cheerful
face) I insisted on pushing into the room and speaking to mother myself.

Marie tossed her head and shrugged her shoulders when I insisted. "La,
la!" she exclaimed, in her French way, "boys are so troublesome. Yes!"

Had it been any other servant, I should have said something sharp to
her, in my newly acquired confidence. But she was mother's maid, and it
was no business of mine if she was impertinent.

"Well, mother," I said, sitting down beside the bed and taking the hand
she put out to me, "I hope you are better--the doctor says you are--and
I hope you will forgive me for my part in the disgraceful scene we had
down stairs last night. But I couldn't stand those Downeses any more and
that's a fact!"

"Oh, Clinton! My dear boy! you are so impulsive and tempestuous," she
murmured.

"I'll try to be as meek as Moses--a regular pussy cat around the house,
hereafter," I returned, cheerfully.

"You are just like your father," she sighed.

"I'm proud to hear you say it," I returned, promptly. "For all I have
ever heard about my father--save the hints that those two scoundrels
have dropped--makes me believe that father was a man worthy of copying
in every particular."

Mother squeezed my hand convulsively, exclaiming:

"Clinton! Clinton! You must not say such things."

"Pray tell me why not, mother?" I demanded, but I spoke quietly. "I
won't say a word about Mr. Chester Downes and Paul, if it hurts your
feelings for me to tell the truth about them. But I am bound to be
angry if anybody maligns my father's memory."

"Oh, Chester would never do such a thing," mother gasped.

"Then, where did Paul pick up that old scandal to throw at me?" I
demanded.

"What old scandal do you mean, Clinton?" she asked, faintly.

"Are you sure you wish to talk about it now, mother?" I asked, for I was
troubled by what the doctor had said the night before.

"Better now than at any other time," she said, with some decision. "I
suppose poor Paul heard some of the servants, or other people like