And so--I gave in--like a fool!" Then, after a
pause, Lady Dashwood exclaimed--"Imagine Belinda as Jim's
mother-in-law!"

"But why should she be?" asked May.

"That's the point. Belinda would prefer an American Wall Street man as a
son-in-law or a Scotch Whisky Merchant, but they're not so easily
got--it's a case of get what you can. So Jim is to be sacrificed."

"But why?" persisted May quietly.

"Why, because--although Jim has seen Belinda and heard her hard false
voice, he doesn't see what she is. He is too responsible to imagine
Belindas and too clever to imagine Gwens. Gwen is very pretty!"

May looked again into the fire.

"Now do you see what a weak fool I've been?" asked Lady Dashwood
fiercely.

"Lady Belinda will bleed him," said May.

"When Belinda is Jim's mother-in-law, he'll have to pay for
everything--even for her funeral!"

"Wouldn't her funeral expenses be cheap at any price?" asked May.

"They would," said Lady Dashwood. "How are we to kill her off? She'll
live--for ever!"

Then Mrs. Dashwood seemed to meditate briefly but very deeply, and at
the end of her short silence she asked--

"And where do I come in, Aunt Lena? What can I do for you?"

Lady Dashwood looked a little startled.

What May had actually got to do was: well, not to do anything but just
to be sweet and amusing as she always was. She had got to show the
Warden what a charming woman was like. And the rest, he had to do. He
had to be fascinated! Lady Dashwood could see a vision of Gwen and her
boxes going safely away from Oxford--even the name of Scott disappearing
altogether from the Warden's recollection.

But after that, what would happen? May too would have to go away. She
was still mourning for her husband--still dreaming at night of that
awful sudden news from France. May would, of course, go back to her work
and leave the Warden to--well--anything in the wide world was better
than "Belinda and Co." And it was this certainty that anything was
better than Belinda and Co., this passionate conviction, that had
filled Lady Dashwood's mind--to the exclusion of all other things.

It had not occurred to her that May would ask the definite question,
"What am I to do?" It was an awkward question.

"What I want you to do," said Lady Dashwood, speaking slowly, while she
swiftly sought in her mind for an answer that would be truthful and
yet--inoffensive. "Why, May, I want you to give me your moral support."

May looked aw