Lady Bridgminster paid her son a visit next morning while he was still in bed and drinking his tea. He was but half awake and pretended to no enthusiasm. But his mother pushed a chair to the bedside and tapped the coverlet with her long fingers. It was patent that for once in her life she was nervous.

“I must speak, Johnny,” she exclaimed. “And as I have several engagements to-day, this is my only opportunity.”

“Where can you have engagements in London at this time of year?”

“I am lunching with Rosamond, and then we visit a flower show, and afterwards attend a committee meeting—one of her charities—”

“So she is in town?”

“It is no more remarkable that she should come to town in this stifling weather for the sake of doing good than that little American should suddenly discover that she must come up for second-rate concerts. It does not strike you as odd, I suppose?”

“If I for a moment believed that Miss Cutting came up to London in August on my account, I should be flattered to death; but as a matter of fact, she quite snubbed me.”

“Fiddlesticks!”

“But she did. I can assure you I have felt a walking tragedy ever since.”

“She was probably in a bad temper about something.”

“She looked precisely like an angel.”

“Well, no doubt angels have their moods, and she is a spoilt child of fortune. Two millions sterling, and I cannot pay my dressmaker!”

“You wrote me once that an American daughter-in-law would be sure to pay your bills.”

“So would Rosamond. I do not want American dollars.”

“Am I to understand that Rosamond Hayle has also come up to London in August—”

“She does not know that you are back from the north, poor dear. I lured her up, pretending interest in her charity.” She leaned forward and took her son’s hands in the close grasp of her own. “Johnny,” she said intensely, “promise me that you will not marry this Cutting girl—at least that you will not propose to her until you have tried to like Rosamond. That dear English girl has vastly improved. And perhaps I have done wrong to hurry you. There are other girls growing up that will have a good bit of their own. I can think of three. If you will not consider poor Rosamond, at least promise me that you will not fall headlong into the net of these Americans.”

“Of course.”

“Do you forget that I brought you up?” His mother’s voice rose with her indignation. “At least pay me the compliment of frankness. And you will say ‘Of course’ at the altar instead of ‘I will,’ if you are not on your guard.”

“Well, then, I won’t. Eliminate Rosamond Hayle at once and forever. I am not at all sure that I wish to marry Miss Cutting. Before I met her again yesterday I knew that I should be hard driven indeed to make up my mind to marry a chatterbox. Now, although she has astonishingly improved, I do not know that I even like her. But she fascinates and interests me. I shall certainly see more of her. If I can like her well enough, and she will look at me—of which I am by no means sure—I fancy—I don’t know—it may be that I shall marry her. At least she would do me credit and assist me in my career. She is ideally beautiful, uncommonly clever, she has the grand air, and she has millions. You are asking me to marry a woman with less than half her fortune, whom smart Continental women would laugh at. I’d starve before I married a woman I should have to apologize for. No doubt I shall end by worrying along until Bridg drinks himself to death.”

“I don’t believe he is in any immediate danger—with that physique. And I had a remarkably lucid letter from him this morning. He wants me to try to persuade you to assist him in breaking the entail of Ordham—some rich brewer wants to buy it. Of course you will not?”

“I shan’t even discuss the question.”

Lady Bridgminster rose with an impatient jerk of her shoulders. As she stood there in the dim light, so long and narrow, draped, rather than dressed like ordinary women, she looked extraordinarily distinguished and handsome. Ordham’s ?sthetic sense stirred, and he put out his hand and took hers.

“We will pay those bills, somehow,” he said. “I got a thousand from Bridg, and Hines, who has been adding up, finds that I overestimated my indebtedness. I will bring you two hundred thi............