e had had Mr. Temperly
to help: he had died, Raymond remembered, six months after the
settlement in New York. But, on the other hand, she knew more now. It
was one of Mrs. Temperly's amiable qualities that she admitted herself
so candidly to be still susceptible of development. She never professed
to be in possession of all the knowledge requisite for her career; not
only did she let her friends know that she was always learning, but she
appealed to them to instruct her, in a manner which was in itself an
example.

When Raymond said to her that he took for granted she would let him come
down to the steamer for a last good-bye, she not only consented
graciously but added that he was free to call again at the hotel in the
evening, if he had nothing better to do. He must come between nine and
ten; she expected several other friends--those who wished to see the
last of them, yet didn't care to come to the ship. Then he would see all
of them--she meant all of themselves, Dora and Effie and Tishy, and even
Mademoiselle Bourde. She spoke exactly as if he had never approached her
on the subject of Dora and as if Tishy, who was ten years of age, and
Mademoiselle Bourde, who was the French governess and forty, were
objects of no less an interest to him. He felt what a long pull he
should have ever to get round her, and the sting of this knowledge was
in his consciousness that Dora was really in her mother's hands. In Mrs.
Temperly's composition there was not a hint of the bully; but none the
less she held her children--she would hold them for ever. It was not
simply by tenderness; but what it was by she knew best herself. Raymond
appreciated the privilege of seeing Dora again that evening as well as
on the morrow; yet he was so vexed with her mother that his vexation
betrayed him into something that almost savoured of violence--a fact
which I am ashamed to have to chronicle, as Mrs. Temperly's own urbanity
deprived such breaches of every excuse. It may perhaps serve partly as
an excuse for Raymond Bestwick that he was in love, or at least that he
thought he was. Before she parted from him at the foot of the staircase
he said to her, 'And of course, if things go as you like over there,
Dora will marry some foreign prince.'

She gave no sign of resenting this speech, but she looked at him for
the first time as if she were hesitating, as if it were not instantly
clear to her what to say. It appeared to him, on his side, for a momen