o remain closed
during anticipated patience.

"Fancy asking me that!" said she.

"Well, but--hang it!--_when?_"

"Do not use profane language, Conrad, in your mother's presence. Can
you really ask me, 'When?' Try and recollect!"

Conrad appeared to consider; but as he had to contend with the problem
of finding out when a thing had been said, the only clue to the nature
of which was the date of its utterance, it was no great wonder that his
cogitations ended in a shake of the head subdivided into its
elements--shakes taken a brace at a time--and an expression of face as
of one who whistles _sotto voce_. His questioner must have been looking
between her eyelids, which wasn't playing fair; for she indicted him on
the spot, and pushed him, as it were, into the dock.

"_That_, I suppose, means that I speak untruth. Very well, my dear!"
Resignation set in.

"Come, mother, I say, now! Be a reasonable maternal parent. When did
I say anybody spoke untruth?"

"My dear, you _said_ nothing. But if your father could have heard what
you did _not_ say, you know perfectly well, my dear Conrad, what he
would have _thought_. Was he likely to sit by and hear me insulted?
Did he ever do so?"

The doctor was writing letters at a desk-table that he used for
miscellaneous correspondence as much as possible, in order that this
very same mother of his should be left alone as little as possible. He
ended a responsible letter, and directed it, and made it a thing of the
past with a stamp on it in a little basket on the hall-table outside.
Then he came back to his mother, and bestowed on her the kiss, or peck,
of peace. It always made him uncomfortable when he had to go away to
the hospital under the shadow of dissension at home.

"Well, mother dear, what was it you really did say about the Fenwick
engagement?"

"It would be more proper, my dear, to speak of it as the Nightingale
engagement. You will say it is a matter of form, but...."

"All right. The Nightingale engagement...."

"My dear! So abrupt! To your mother!"

"Well, dear mammy, what was it, really now?" This cajolery took effect,
and the Widow Vereker's soul softened. She resumed her knitting.

"If you don't remember what it was, dear, it doesn't matter." The
doctor saw that nothing short of complete concession would procure
a tranquil sea.

"Of course, I remember perfectly well," he said mendaciously. He knew
that, left alone, his mother would supply a summary of wh