ate far more being left a beggar in
the world, without enough money to keep yourself alive."

"I am sure I can keep myself alive."

"Yes, but how? _You_, who have been petted and pampered all your
life?"

"Oh, _don't_ speak to me as if I were in the cradle!" says Maurice,
with a shrug.

"Do you never think?"

"Sometimes".

"Oh yes, of Marian. That designing woman! Do you believe _I_ haven't
read her, if you are still blind? She will hold you on and on and
on. And if your uncle _should_ chance to die, why, then she will
marry you; but if in the meantime she meets anyone with money who
will marry her, why, good-bye to _you_. But you must not marry! Mind
that! You must be held in chains whilst she goes free. Really,
Maurice," rising and regarding him with extreme contempt, "your
folly is so great over this absurd infatuation for Marian, that
sometimes I wonder if you can be my own son."

"I am my father's son also," says Maurice. "He, I believe, did
sometimes believe in somebody. He believed in you."

He turns away abruptly, and an inward laugh troubles him. Was that
last gibe not an argument against himself, his judgment? Like his
father; _is_ he like his father? Can he, too, see only gold where
dross lies deep? Sometimes, of late he has doubted. The laughter
dies away, he sighs heavily.

"He was wise," says Lady Rylton coolly. "He had no cause to regret
his belief. But you, you sit in a corner, as it were, and see
nothing but Marian smiling. You never see Marian frowning. Your
corner suits you. It would trouble you too much to come out into the
middle of the room and look around Marian. And in the end what will
it all come to? _Nothing!"_

"Then why make yourself so unhappy about nothing?"

"Because----"

"My dear mother," turning rather fiercely on her, "let us have an
end of this. Marian would not marry me. She has refused me many
times."

"I am quite aware of that," says Lady Rylton calmly. "She has taken
care to tell me so. She will never marry you unless you get your
uncle's money (and he is as likely to live to be a Methuselah as
anyone I ever saw; the scandalous way in which he takes care of his
health is really a byword!), but she will hold you on until----"

"I asked you not to go on with this," says Rylton, interrupting he
again. "If you have nothing better to say to me than the abuse of
Marian, I----"

"But I have. What is Marian, what is _anything_ to me except your
marriage with Tita B