Chapter II

BUT Mrs. Heyham, though she did her best, could not settle down as she ought to have done. James watched her carefully, and though she was charming about it he felt that the engagement still distressed her. She was a little pale, he thought, and detached and indifferent to carefully planned amusements. Something more radical would have to be done. He would have liked to take her abroad, but he had business matters in hand which he could not trust to Trent. Nevertheless things must not remain as they were. He took his problem to Rosemary, whose own conscience was not untroubled. "We've got to think of some way," he told her, "of interesting your mother."

Rosemary agreed with him. Now that she turned her mind to it she could see that her mother's life needed interests. For what, when she came to express her sense of it, had Mary's life been? She expended some little ingenuity in pointing and amplifying her own conception of such an existence before, in her turn, she consulted Anthony.

Her mother, that was the gist of it, had not lived. Here, in this great world of speed and steel and electricity, this world of banks and syndicates and organised labour, Mrs. Heyham had kept her house and nursed her babies as she might have done a hundred, five hundred, years ago. She used the clothes and the food and the furniture of the twentieth century because they were there, at her hand. She knew nothing of how they were made or of what brought them to her. She lived like an insect in a coral reef, ignorant of the laws by which she was governed. Mathematics, the triumph of man's intellect, meant some x's and y's, some circles and triangles in children's school-books. Philosophy meant that a great many cultivated people do not believe in God. Biology meant that in some indiscreet manner we are descended from monkeys; economics that the Conservatives think a lot can be done with Tariff Reform, and the Liberals have been left to make the best of Free Trade. Industry was represented in her mind by the shops where she bought her clothes and ordered her provisions, by factories, heard of but never seen, by a bank with large stone pillars that sent her cheque-books, by so much money from her husband every week. When she tried to escape from it all, at least to vary it, she travelled on padded seats of first-class carriages, she slept in hotels where she was carried to her room in a lift, she stared at views whose last details of excellence had been dissected in guide books. Public opinion, since she was a rich woman, did not allow Mr. Heyham to beat her or to take her money, and she could walk alone in the street without being insulted. She could read novels about other women's love-affairs, she could turn up the light in her house by putting her finger on a knob. Yet she had no clue to the meaning of her life or of the lives of the people who served her and worked for her. She knew as little of the city she lived in as she knew of the fields where primitive women toiled. She was shut off--like all of us, Rosemary thought--from the wild things of the earth, from its oceans, its forests, its snows. She was denied man's heritage of knowledge, the rewards of his search for truth. She was sheltered from the need of working with her hands. She had lost the keenness of her savage senses and the strength of her savage impulses. She had lost her bodily hardness, her mental vigour and curiosity. Even her love of luxury had gone--she did not care, as some women do, to scent herself and hang herself with jewels, to wrap herself in soft furs and in supple bright-coloured stuffs. All these desires had withered to a mere dislike of dirt and disorder, a vague positive aspiration that things should be nice. Mrs. Heyham was a graceful woman, good, simple, sensitive. She respected herself and she was respected by others. That was her spiritual share of the loot of the centuries!

They were walking through the park to Hampton Court when Rosemary tried to impose this view of the matter on Anthony. He listened to it with interest but without excitement. He was a fair-haired, sunny-tempered youth, a little lazy about giving rein to his own enthusiasm but tolerant of Rosemary's, for he admired her wits. It was a fine afternoon. He turned appreciative eyes to the long lines of trees changing from green to grey in the slight pleasant haze. Then he looked back at Rosemary. "Well," he asked her, "granting all that--and you've put it very nicely--what is your solution?"

Rosemary had thought of a solution and a very good solution too, suitable, revolutionary, and high-minded. She was not deterred from explaining it by Tony's indolent tone. Rosemary was herself a Socialist and she could not help feeling that if her mother were to take up some sort of work among her father's employees the results must be thoroughly satisfactory to all right-thinking people. Her father was a good employer--neither she nor Anthony doubted it--but it is admitted that only a woman can understand a woman's difficulties. If you thought of the matter with an open mind, some such devotion of herself seemed only Mrs. Heyham's duty. There could be no doubt that she ate and wore the profits of the business.

"Delightful for the girls, but what is your mother going to get out of it?" Anthony asked. He thought of his own mother, a strong-minded lady who made a great point of remembering that she was only a woman. No child of hers would willingly have extended the sphere of her influence, but then she lacked essential human kindness. Mrs. Heyham, on the other hand, was the kindest woman he knew, she was kinder than Rosemary. He wouldn't, personally, have considered that her life or her personality needed any addition. They seemed to him gracious, complete, and satisfying, and he did not think that she herself would wish to tamper with them.

But Rosemary was answering him. Why--she told him, looking round in her turn at the still trees and the sunny grass--here would be her mother's chance. She could leave her artificial, opulent home and go out into the world, the man's world, that she had never seen. She would touch it, study it, find out her own place and her value from it. She could live again, not only with her charm and her sympathy and her admirable legitimate affections but with her mind, with her soul--Tony might jeer at the word as much as he liked, but it was exactly her soul that Rosemary meant. She would learn that out in the world justice and mercy and pity are not easy, natural things. They must be found--fought for, insisted on. "Mother," she finished, "has never fought for anything in her life."

"On the contrary," Anthony told her, "you know nothing about it. A woman like your mother--I speak with the authority of all the ages--finds her life and her adventures in herself. She doesn't need to be stirred by your gross realities, your sordid politics, your miserable clamour for things to eat and a hole to go to sleep in. She lives, so to speak, in the depths of the sea, dark-green and heavy, far away down, while you, my dear Rosemary, are running about in a bright red bathing-dress and splashing in the little waves on the beach." He smiled at her all the same as if he approved her choice of occupation.

"And the air," Rosemary reminded him, "and the sky, and the sun! But seriously, Tony, isn't that all drivel? There may be a mystical life that can do without experience, but most women haven't got it--mother hasn't. Taking things as they are, what can you find to criticise in my plan?"

Tony turned to look at her and met her earnest eyes. She was a beautiful creature, he thought, and he liked her gallant tilting at destiny. It was rather jolly of her to marry him. When he spoke, his voice expressed an easy-going affection. "If I were your mother," he informed her, "I wouldn't stir a finger to touch what you call life. However, from your point of view, your plan is all right--if you can persuade your father."

Rosemary had no doubts upon that score. She could easily manage father, and her mother would simply have to be persuaded. Really it was a masterly idea--it would be thrilling, most thrilling, to see what she made of it all.

To her father next day she presented the plan as if it meant nothing more than a trifling charity, and Mr. Heyham, after careful thought, saw no objection to it. He was not aware of any deficiencies in his system, but he was a broad-minded man and could very well believe that there were a lot of little things that might be done for the girls as long as they were done in a proper way. He had always deplored the spirit which makes so many employers regard their business contract as the only link between master and men. He had given his support to Progressive legislation when his party introduced it, and when he went into one of his restaurants he liked to see the waitresses looking cheerful and well-fed. He knew that he was popular, and the thought of Mary among the work-people, doing good to them and adored by them, was pleasant. Also, and this was the chief consideration, it was just the thing for Mary. Her own children were leaving her and what she wanted was somebody to mother. He thought well of Rosemary for her idea; he told himself that there is a good deal to be said for these modern young women.

Laura, whose own struggles with housekeeping had given her a new respect for Mrs. Heyham, showed the easy enthusiasm of the irresponsible. It would be splendid for mother to have this fresh outlet for her powers, and it would be so nice for them all to feel that everything was being looked after from a woman's point of view. Perhaps later on, if mother organised clubs or anything that might help her--after all, they all shared in the profits of the business and in a sort of way they were responsible. She also felt that it was so splendid of father to want to let mother in, not like most men who are so vulgar about their wives. And--this when she had been told of the young man's attitude--it was just like Trent to make a fuss about what everybody else wanted.

Rosemary, though she was glad of this warm reception, did not feel that it took her very much further as to Trent. If Mrs. Heyham chose to see a difficulty in his beastly mulishness she was not likely to be moved by Laura. After all Trent worked very hard at the business and, in a way, he had plenty of brains. You could not disregard him as if he were a boy or a fool.

"Why not, when he behaves like one?" Laura had only looked in for a few minutes and as she was in a hurry she was inclined to take a lofty way with obstacles.

Rosemary did not agree. "It's very tiresome of him, but what is the use of owning a business if you can't be tiresome and obstinate about it? That's what employers mean when they write to the papers and say that they must be allowed to manage their own affairs in their own way!" In her heart Rosemary was not sorry to see Trent embodying her notion of the grasping capitalist. She was fond of her brother, but she preferred a dramatic interest.

Laura refused to see matters in this light. If they wanted to win, the point to be stressed was not Trent's rights but his ungraciousness. "But, my dear Rosemary," she said, "he can't have any serious objection! Isn't it obvious that he's merely trying to be disagreeable? Unless of course--" this struck her as a good idea--"he thinks his Iredales won't consider it the thing!" She had a train to catch and as she spoke she moved towards the door.

Rosemary shook her head. She didn't believe that Lord Iredale's objection to Trent as a cousin would be affected by any charitable enterprises that Mrs. Heyham might undertake. Trent's reasons, whatever they were, were clearly not of a kind that he could make public.

This, as Trent himself felt, was the weakness of his position. He was not a man who could make a show with sentimental values and this was a matter of sentiment. Trent liked little soft childish women. He liked, in a quiet way, to be made a fuss of; he did not long to be understood, but only to be prettily admired. Women who sat on committees and superintended movements were apt to cultivate an impersonal manner which he found chilling. He had not much leisure for ladies' society, but when he did adorn it he expected to be received with womanly charm. And his grievance now was that Rosemary, with her confounded ideas, was getting hold of, was doing her best to spoil, his charming mother.

However you looked at it, it was a horrible plan. Mrs. Heyham, as Trent saw her, was the last person to throw among waitresses and factory girls. Their girls were no worse than the rest, in fact the firm made distinct efforts towards moral tone, but he could not believe in his heart that they were better. And Trent was afraid of waitresses. At Oxford there had been a rather large waitress who made advances to him. She was a moist lady with bright yellow hair, and Trent still shivered with disgust when he thought of her dirty fingers on the edge of his plate.... That was the sort of person Rosemary wanted to bring into contact with his mother! He pictured Mrs. Heyham being imposed on, made use of, duped and talked over by malcontents and agitators. Sooner or later there was bound to be trouble and once she was there they would have to stand by her. On the other hand the prospect of his mother hardened, his mother become managing and suspicious, his mother under the influence of inspectors and Trade Union officials and Socialists of all kinds, filled him with a mild anguish.

Trent did not realise that Mrs. Heyham, who was now forty-five, had a character of her own. She had been almost his ideal of a mother, receptive and sympathetic, and he could not think of her now as anything but immature and easily swayed. A wave of protective feeling rose in his heart. It was particularly shocking that her own husband should expose her to this danger!

But though these considerations glared broadly before his eyes he could not state them directly. Trent had, of a formal kind, an immense respect for his mother, and he accepted the fact that it was as impossible for her husband to discuss her with her son as it was for her son to discuss her with anyone else. It was unfortunate, he thought, that the serious approach had come from his sister and that when James had mentioned the plan to him he had done so in a casual manner, alluding to it as Rosemary's newest idea. Trent had hoped to avoid offence by laughing too, saying that Rosemary's imagination was given to running away with her, and promising that he would think it over as fully as it deserved. Thinking it over had only produced reasons to fortify his impulsive aversion, and if he did not mention it again it was because he hoped that Mr. Heyham might have seen fit, on reflection, to drop it. Trent never made it harder for people to do right by enlisting their pride against him.

But James, who had learned from Rosemary of Trent's real attitude, had as a matter of fact been waiting, not to retreat from his position, but for some sign of an apology from his son. In business matters Trent might stand up to him if he could. Young brains were sometimes a match for experience, and in any case they could only develop by making a fight for it. But where his own wife--where Trent's mother--was concerned, Mr. Heyham was still the head of his family, and he was hurt that Trent should lack the good taste that would have taken this for granted. He had never exacted a show of respect from his son, and he had perhaps assumed too easily that the young man had understood his attitude. He ought to have understood it; if he hadn't he showed a mental coarseness which his father did not find easy to forgive.

Mr. Heyham had always stuck up for Trent, if only because he was a boy and the girls were down on him, but it seemed to him quite possible now that he had been wrong. The possibility was not pleasant, and James, when business allowed it, preferred his thoughts to have a mellow savour. He therefore decided, when two days had passed and Trent had said nothing, to finish the matter out in the library after dinner.

He waited until Trent had left the hearth-rug and settled himself in a chair. James himself remained standing, it was always, he felt, annoying to have your adversary leaning over you. Trent was looking particularly thoughtful, for he was trying a new kind of cigar.

James opened briskly. "Rosemary and I are anxious to know, Trent, when we may mention this plan of ours to your mother?"

Trent was deeply disappointed. He had hoped, at the least, for a reasonable openness of mind, and he was met with what looked painfully like a display of temper. It was clear that argument was no use, there was nothing for it but to be firm.

"As soon as you like, sir," he said in a tone which he hoped would express the sentiments desirable to a man in his position, "as long as my mother understands that it has nothing to do with me."

"As long as we tell her that you wash your hands of her!"

This was unfair, and Trent hated unfairness. He stared hard at the cigar for a moment while he tried to master his irritation, telling himself that thirty years of business make a man quick to put others in the wrong. His father, watching him, was struck by the attitude. "Good lord," he thought, "he might be a curate! Well, well...." Meanwhile Trent was answering. "My dear father, once we're committed to this plan it won't be possible to wash our hands of it. But I don't want my mother to think I approve of it."

"It would be interesting," said James, who was accustomed to come off best in verbal disputes, "exceedingly interesting to know why!"

Trent picked his way as well as he could, among his reasons. "Well, in the first place, I'm convinced that it will make difficulties. Perhaps I see more of the girls than you do, and they're as discontented as they can be. Especially the waitresses. We simply can't afford to have them upset." He hesitated.

"And what in the second place?"

"In the second place, then, I must say that I don't think it's suitable for my mother. Our girls are not like villagers, they're not accustomed to ladies. And mother has never had any experience of this sort of thing."

By this time James was angry too. Trent had as good as said that he didn't take proper care of his own wife. That wasn't an arguable matter, so he let it rankle a little and turned to the other point. "I really can't congratulate you on your apparent experience," he said. "Our waitresses are a perfectly respectable lot of girls; I shouldn't in the least mind my daughters going amongst them. In any case I can't see why you should think that your mother is likely to corrupt them!"

Here was more unfairness! "I didn't say corrupt. I said upset. Anything they are not accustomed to upsets them. Look at the trouble we had over stopping their tips, though they must have seen that it's a far better plan to have a regular bonus! What I feel is that the person at the back of this is Rosemary, and frankly I'm not prepared to be responsible for Rosemary's ideas."

Rosemary's ideas received no defence from her father. He had thought of a new weapon. "My dear fellow," he retorted, "suppose we look at this from your mother's point of view for a moment. It may not occur to her that her influence is likely to be disastrous and upsetting. She may even feel that she has some rights in the matter, seeing that half the business is hers! You forget that it was your mother's money that bought out old Clarkson!"

Trent had forgotten it, indeed it was not often remembered by anyone but Mary's unsatisfactory brother. When Trent heard it mentioned now he knew that he had lost; money is money, even when it belongs to a woman. But he was too much annoyed to admit defeat. "I wasn't disputing my mother's rights, sir; if it were even her own wish it would be different. But, as I understand it, she is to be persuaded into a rôle of interference that is the last thing she would have thought of for herself!"

His father laughed. "In fact there's a general conspiracy in the family against the dignity and peace of mind of Trent Heyham, Esq.!"

Trent, he flattered himself, could be a gentleman even in an argument. Such cheap sneers were unworthy of his father. They were not argument. He did not answer them.

James, too, felt that almost enough had been said. Trent hadn't a chance, and there was no need to press the boy.

"Look here," he said, quite agreeably, "I'm not prepared to discuss your mother with you. You can take it from me that nobody is going to persuade her against her wishes"--Trent grunted, he knew Rosemary's powers--"and I'm not going to discuss the whole position of women with you either, though I don't mind telling you that you know nothing about it. But before we close the subject you must understand that I really can't undertake to explain your views to your mother. They're beyond me. But of course I shall be delighted if you can make her see why she is going to do all this harm. Only you'll have to put it off until to-morrow because I mean to speak to her myself first." Victory had made him energetic, and he felt this was a good moment for explaining the matter to Mary. He stood up, paused for a minute as if he were waiting for Trent's answer, and then walked briskly, almost gaily, out of the room. He knew that he had left Trent nursing a grievance. He knew that Trent did not mean to speak to his mother, and that he felt insulted by the accusation. He did not care whether the poor young man felt insulted or not. For the moment Trent was merely a defeated adversary.

Moreover he was a nuisance. Mr. Heyham had never felt certain that Mary would take to the plan, and now it had become necessary that she should receive it with enthusiasm. He was not going to overpersuade her, he had said so, and, besides, it is of no use forcing a person to do a thing for her own amusement. But Trent had certainly made it difficult for him to give way on the matter. Trent was a self-righteous young fool. Damn him!

Mary was alone in the drawing-room, for Rosemary had gone to a theatre with Anthony. James became more impressed by the beneficence of his scheme when he noticed that Mary was doing nothing. But she took up some knitting and pretended to be busy directly she saw him--brave little woman!

He hovered over her rather awkwardly for a moment. Twenty years ago, if he had wanted to persuade her, he would have sat down on the footstool at her feet, and some unreasonable impulse was urging him now that the footstool would be appropriate. He made no conscious decision, habit settled him in his usual chair, but for once he went doubtfully. He remembered the time when their house had seemed to him merely an opportunity for being alone with Mary, when his heart had beat with a little feeling of triumph as he closed the street door. Then the children had come, with their right to interrupt, to burst joyfully into rooms, and now that the children were going he had discovered a sense of what was due to the servants. It would be ridiculous now to jump up because the moment had come for some of the servants' confounded fidgetings. He told himself that there was nothing to regret. He and Mary were beyond the old constant need of these little symbols and affirmations. It would be absurd if they weren't, after twenty-six years together. Such things had to give way to the other pressures and interests of life, but that didn't mean that love had given way!

He looked fondly across at Mary, satisfaction completely restored. It was a commonplace that there are not many wives like Mary, and a matter for congratulation that he had, on the whole, been able to make her a very decent husband. At any rate, she thought so, bless her, and he was perfectly willing to admit his debt to her belief. If James had really believed in a God he would frequently have thanked Him for His forethought in creating good women.

As it was, the force of Mr. Heyham's gratitude went to increase his determination. "I suppose Rosemary has been telling you of the great things you are to do?" he began lightly, wasting no more time.

"Well, she hasn't said anything, but she has been looking at me with an appraising eye. And she has lent me one or two books to read." It was plain to Mary that James wanted her to be pleased about Rosemary's scheme, so she prepared herself to receive it. "Dear James! Dear children! How sweet of them to think of me!" she told herself hurriedly.

James seemed amused. "I saw she was trying to make Trent read somebody's _Principles of Economics_ the other day."

"I don't think these were economics. I'm afraid I haven't looked at them yet, though I meant to begin one this evening. She said they were books that would give me an insight into the lives of the poor."

James was touched by the thought of little mother bent over Rosemary's books. "Tyrannous young bluestocking!" he said, "I don't think we need bother our old lady with books! It's just where books fail that we want her to come in. The fact is, mother--I don't know whether you will forgive us--but your family have been hatching a plot. Rosemary is concerned about the workgirls ground down under the masculine heels of Trent and her father, and I am very much concerned about the old lady. I don't think she's as happy as she ought to be. She's an active old thing, and it's no use her pretending that she can settle down to knitting. I believe if she looks she'll find the sock she's got there has two heels to it. So we thought that if she were to give some of her time to combating the firm's ruthless oppression it would be a new interest for her, besides putting an end to one of the worst excesses of the capitalistic régime!"

Mary was startled into opposition. "But, my dear, what could I do? I'm certain I shouldn't suit Rosemary at all--I should probably be on the side of the tyrants! And I know nothing about it!" She smiled at him to hide a sudden feeling of fear.

James was very soothing and very affectionate. She needn't be afraid that she would have to participate in crimes--things weren't as bad as that, in spite of Rosemary's friends. And she mustn't fear either that she was going to be asked to move mountains or change human nature. It was really the mere fact of her interest that was important. The girls would feel that someone cared about them, someone who needn't have cared; they wouldn't suspect her motives as they always suspected the motives of their employers. And her presence would help them in other ways. A word or two would encourage the lady managers to treat their staffs more kindly--though James could assure her that they were a kind set of women, wonderfully kind when you thought how heavy their responsibilities were--yet Mary's example would perhaps infuse a new courtesy into their intercourse with the girls. And perhaps Mary's quick eye would see little things that might with advantage be altered--it was very difficult for a busy man to realise where rules pressed perhaps a little more hardly than they were meant to, and the lady managers hadn't always the fine sense that could be trusted only to complain about the right things. It is difficult to explain the necessities of the case to people of no education without appearing brutal, or even to concede a reform without appearing weak. On the whole they had had to discourage complaints. But a private word to him from Mary would stand in a entirely different category. It would be like giving him double time, two pairs of ears, two pairs of eyes.

He didn't for a moment propose that she should make a burden for herself, or tie herself down to stated hours and times. She was to take them as lightly as she chose, and they would know how to be grateful.

Mary submitted to the flood of these persuasions in helpless silence. James did not like being checked in the middle of his explanations. Moreover, taking his argument point by point, she could not answer it. James was so just and so reasonable--everything he said was sure to be true. Her only defence was that she didn't like the idea--that she was afraid of it. She did not want to be mixed up in James's business. She had been perfectly content to trust him where she could not follow him. His work, to her, seemed vast, complicated, laborious, and she credited him with a display of qualities in relation to it which matched the candour, the courage, the generosity she so counted upon at home. She knew that he shone at business as he shone everywhere else, but for her it was different. How would she fare in this world where men made the rules, with its stalwart virtues and strange stumbling-blocks? How could she know that she wouldn't give offence, be weak, or foolish, make James look down on her? "It would be all very well for Rosemary," she told herself, "but I can't--no, I can't--it's too much for me!"

"Well, what are you hiding in that wise little head of yours?" her husband was saying.

She could not find words. Her opening "James" remained unsupported. She would have liked, instead of answering, to cry.

"Is it as dreadful as all that? Are we bullying our little mother?" James had crossed over to her and taken both her hands, and made her stand up in front of him by the fireplace. "She must have a little more courage--oh, yes, I can see she is afraid, afraid of making a mess of things and not coming up to expectations. But she must pull herself together and remember that I've just been telling Trent, that in a way she owns a good deal of this terrifying business, and in a way she is responsible for it. Trent and I have done our best to administer it for her, but as Rosemary thinks, though she's too polite to say so, we are dull masculine creatures at best, and the place needs its mistress's eye."

If James spoke like that it meant that his mind was made up. There was no real use in disputing and making matters more hard, more definite. Nevertheless, she spoke. "But, James, supposing we don't agree?"

James accepted the admission with a smile. "My dear, are we in the habit of quarrelling? And do we always agree? Well, then! When we don't agree we shall talk things over."

"And I shall give way!" Of course she would give way, it was simple enough.

James shook his head. "I'm not so sure about that! I know somebody who can be as obstinate as a tiger with a bone! I'd sooner move mountains than move her from off one of her scruples! She's a dreadful little person to tackle when her mind is made up!" Mary's obstinacy had been agreed upon between them since she had successfully refused to have footmen in her household, or even a boy and a butler.

Mary reassured him. "But in this case you'll have the making of it up!"

James thought it probable he would. "Well, there's no need to sigh like that!" he told her. "In six months, ridiculous one, we shall have you thanking us for a new lease of life!"

Mrs. Heyham smiled faintly, and let him swing her hands in and out. "You said you had to remind Trent," she asked presently. "Does that mean that he doesn't agree with you?"

James let go her hands that he might clasp his own behind his back. "I rather gather that Mr. Trent believes in women leading a sheltered life. Dew-sprinkled flowers and bloomy grapes and that sort of thing. He was distressed at the idea of your going among the girls, who don't meet his ideas of nice people. And on the other hand he seemed to fear that you would prove a channel for Rosemary's revolutionary doctrines--want to hand over the business to the London County Council, or whatever the theory of the moment is."

Mary could laugh. "Dear Trent--to tell you the truth, though I wouldn't care to admit it to Rosemary, I've only the dimmest notion of her theories! It's a subject on which I've felt too ignorant for discussion. But, seriously, James, how can I undertake the work you suggest if one of the directors objects?" For a moment she felt grateful to Trent.

"I don't think we shall hear much more of Trent's objection, my dear, and even if his manners were worse than I think them, it's of no consequence. I made him a director because I thought it more fair to him, but until I retire I, and not Trent, am at the head of the firm." He spoke in his business voice.

There was nothing very hopeful in that, and Mary felt weakly inclined for a compromise. "You'll give me a night to think it over, won't you, James?" she asked. "It's just possible I might discover an argument that would send you and your old plan packing."

James laughed and kissed her. "Oh, I'm quite ready to allow Rosemary her share in the glory of convincing you. I'm sure that not even Anthony could have lured her out if she had known that the assault was to be made to-night. Think it over as much as you like, but I don't expect you'll find your argument!"

There was nothing more to say, the matter was settled for the evening, and James became aware of the fact that it was ten o'clock. Moreover, he was in the drawing-room, whereas at ten o'clock, if they were alone, he was accustomed to be in his study. Mary did not want him, she had turned back to her knitting, and she would soon be going to bed. He waited a moment, to be sure that she did not want him, but when it came she seemed quite to expect his good-night.

Nevertheless, Mary did not go to bed. She lay back in her chair and tried, in the interval that he had left her, to bring some pertinent order into her thoughts. She had not only to decide what she should do, but, equally difficult, how she should put the thing to James. She knew that she was not good at sustaining an argument even when she had thought it out carefully beforehand.

She tried to state the case very plainly to herself, James's side and the other side. After all, that was the important thing, it did not matter so much that he should be pleased with the answer he got from her. Just now she had been cowardly; it was only fair to him that he should know what was really in her mind. She had slid too much into the habit of answering James's mood and not his arguments.

As she thought it seemed to her the case against her going was, in substance, Trent's case. He, silly boy, tried to make it a shackle to hold all women. She did not believe in these lofty generalisations, but she doubted, all the same, whether she might not be wise to respect the prohibition for herself. She was not one of the women who were fitted, either by training or by an adventurous disposition to work with men, at men's affairs, on a neutral footing. Men, for her, had been creatures to be pleased and to be cared for, and men had loved her and been good to her precisely because of this attitude of hers. To do what James asked would be to approach them on a different basis, and she felt it was hard she should be asked to risk what she had been so proud of--her successful relations with her husband and her son.

She could see, as she thought it over, that all her life had been passed in this cherishing of individuals. She had learned to study them, to respond to them, to guide herself and them through intricate problems of character and conduct. It had not been easy, she could remember times when she had lost her way. But it had always been this person and that, people she knew, people whose lives she understood. She had never been called upon to deal with them in numbers, as classes, to rule them with rough and ready decisions. Moreover, though there had been limits to her time, her strength, her money, and even, she felt remorsefully, to her good-will, she had at any rate been sure of the principles on which she based her decisions. She had known what she wanted for them all, for James, for the children, for the servants. These waitresses and factory girls were beyond her ken. How was she to know what she wanted for them or what she ought to want? If she found out how could she then count the forces available to help her or discover what barriers stood in her way? If it had been simple to arrange proper conditions it would not have been left all this time for her to do.

She was returning to her old feeling of timidity and aversion when she pulled herself up. She was not, she told herself, looking at the thing squarely; she was arguing as if James had advanced his plan out of sheer wantonness. He had started, and she must start, too, from the fact of her narrowing life. She mustn't pretend that the alternative to agreement was her old round of interests and activities. It was something less and less important than that. Soon she would be an old woman whose empty house waited for the children to open its doors. James was right, she couldn't condemn herself to that. And if she went forward, if she saved her life from this dreariness, then, James's plan or another, she must take a risk.

She tried now to reassure herself. She knew that she was not a fool; and these terrifying waitresses were, after all, human beings like other people. Their needs were ordinary human needs for health and happiness. It would probably amuse them, poor things, if they knew that their employer's wife was frightened of them!

These painstaking reflections were suddenly scattered. Mrs. Heyham's conscience, always partial to conviction of sin, had flashed upon her a charge of unkindness to James. James's kindness and forethought, his sympathy for her loneliness, the trouble he had taken, the trouble he was prepared to take over her stumblings in the future, all were arrayed against the wife who had never thanked him or shown that she recognised them. It was perfectly true, he had been a dear about it, and she had thought of nobody but herself!

Mary could not have slept with this upon her mind. Two minutes later James, looking up from an article on the latest naval scare, saw her crossing the floor of his study.

"James," she said softly, bending over him, "you must have been thinking what a selfish creature I am! I never thanked you at all, and it was so kind of you, my dear!"

James made her sit on the arm of his chair. "The absurd old lady!" he scolded. "A moment ago she was worrying because she wasn't clever enough, and now, Heavens above us, she's selfish! She will positively be smothered with gratitude from all sorts of poor creatures presently, and then will be time enough to hand on a little of it to me. Now, are there any more deadly sins to be explained away?"

Mary bent over him until her cheek touched his head. "I want you to promise," she said a little shyly, "promise that however silly I am you won't think the worse of me for it. Please!"

James laughed. "Solemnly, on my honour, you funny old darling! May I die in my shoes if I doubt that whatever you do is the most admirable thing in the world! There, will that suit you?"

Mary kissed him, slipped from his arm and went to the door. "Sometimes," she told him, looking round before her final disappearance, "I'm rather fond of you, James!" The door shut.

James found his place in the article with a smiling face. Germany or no Germany, he felt that this is not a bad world. He liked to see Mary scrupulous in matters of emotion; sometimes it was a little tiresome, but it gave him a feeling that she was dependable. "That's the best of her," he told himself, "she likes to think things out for herself, but she always sees one's point of view in the end." He plunged into statistics. He did not believe in this invasion, but to read of it reminded him that he was doing his duty. He had said that if any of his men cared to join the Territorials he would arrange about their holidays. It was inconvenient, of course, having them all go together, but he had done it. In this way, as he had pointed out, even the senior men, whose holidays now had to wait, contributed their little sacrifice to England's greatness. We cannot all die for our country, but dear me, that's no reason for not doing something!

James slept well that night.