again.

'Can't you forgive me, Tom?' she asked pitifully. 'Won't you take some
of the money--only what I made by singing?'

He shook his head without looking round, for it would have hurt him to
see her eyes just then.

'I have enough, mother,' he answered. 'I make as much as I need.'

'You will need much more when you marry.'

'I shall never marry.'

'You will marry little Miss Donne,' said Madame Bonanni, after a
moment's pause.

Lushington turned sharply now, and leaned back against the glass.

'No,' he answered, with sudden hardness, 'I can't ask Miss Donne to be
my wife. No man in my position could have the right. You understand
what I mean, and heaven knows I don't wish to pain you, mother--I'd
give anything not to! Why do you talk of these things?'

'Because I feel that you're unhappy, Tom, and I know that I am--and
there must be some way out of it. After all, my dear--now don't be
angry!--Miss Donne is a good girl--she's all that I wish I had
been--but after all, she's going to be an opera-singer. You are the son
of an artist and I don't see why any artist should not marry you. The
public believes we are all bad, whether we are or not.'

'I'm not thinking of the public,' Lushington answered. 'I don't care a
straw what the world says. If I had been offered my choice I would not
have changed my name at all.'

'But then, my dear, what in the world are you thinking of?' asked the
prima donna, evidently surprised by what he said. 'If the girl loves
you, do you suppose she will care what I've done?'

'But I care!' cried Lushington with sudden vehemence. 'I care, for her
sake!'

Madame Bonanni's hand had disappeared within the furs again, after she
had ascertained that the two tears were not going to run down her
cheeks. Her large face wore the expression of a coloured sphinx, and
there was something Egyptian about the immobility of her eyes and her
painted eyebrows. No one could have guessed from her look whether she
were going to cry or laugh the next time she spoke. Lushington walked
up and down the room without glancing at her.

'Do you think----' she began, and broke off as he stopped to listen.

'What?' he inquired, standing still.

'Would it make it any better if--if I married again?' She asked the
question with hesitation.

'How? I don't understand.'

'They always say that marriage is so respectable,' Madame Bonanni
answered, in a matter-of-fact tone. 'I don't know why, I'm sure, but
ev