my actions; I shall knock him down."

"Reggie dear, you'll have such dreadful indigestion if you don't calm
down. You know it always upsets you to get excited immediately after
meals."

"It's disgraceful! I suppose he forgets all those half-crowns I gave him
when he was a boy, and the cigars, and the port wine he's had since. I
opened a special bottle for him only the night before last. I'll never
sit down to dinner with him again--don't ask me to, Clara.... It's the
confounded impertinence of it which gets over me. But he shall marry
you, my dear; or I'll know the reason why."

"You can't have him up for breach of promise, Reggie," cooed Mrs.
Clibborn.

"A gentleman takes the law in his own hands in these matters. Ah, it's a
pity the good old days have gone when they settled such things with cold
steel!"

And the Colonel, to emphasise his words, flung himself into the
appropriate attitude, throwing his left hand up behind his head, and
lunging fiercely with the right.

"Go and look for my _pince-nez_, my dear," said Mrs. Clibborn, turning
to Mary. "I think they're in my work-basket or in your father's study."

Mary was glad to leave the room, about which the Colonel stamped in an
ever-increasing rage, pausing now and then to take a mouthful of bread
and cheese. The request for the glasses was Mrs. Clibborn's usual way of
getting rid of Mary, a typical subterfuge of a woman who never, except
by chance, put anything straightforwardly.... When the door was closed,
the buxom lady clasped her hands, and cried:

"Reginald! Reginald! I have a confession to make."

"What's the matter with you?" said the Colonel, stopping short.

"I am to blame for this, Reginald." Mrs. Clibborn threw her head on one
side, and looked at the ceiling as the only substitute for heaven.
"James Parsons has jilted Mary--on my account."

"What the devil have you been doing now?"

"Oh, forgive me, Reginald!" she cried, sliding off the chair and falling
heavily on her knees. "It's not my fault: he loves me."

"Fiddlesticks!" said her husband angrily, walking on again.

"It isn't, Reginald. How unjust you are to me!"

The facile tears began to flow down Mrs. Clibborn's well-powdered
cheeks.

"I know he loves me. You can't deceive a woman and a mother."

"You're double his age!"

"These boys always fall in love with women older than themselves; I've
noticed it so often. And he's almost told me in so many words, though
I'm sure I've