Hester."

The girl obeyed her languidly. Her mother eyed her with an attention she
seldom vouchsafed to anything. Her plain black frock was ill-fitting and
worn. She wore no ribbon or jewellery or adornment of any sort.
Negatively her face was not ill-pleasing, but her figure was angular, and
her complexion almost anaemic. The woman on the couch represented other
things. She was tastefully, though somewhat elaborately dressed. She wore
chains and trinkets about her neck, rings upon her fingers, and in her
face had begun in earnest the tragic struggle between an actual forty and
presumptive twenty. She laughed again, a little hardly.

"And you are my daughter," she exclaimed. "You are one of the freaks of
heredity. I'm perfectly certain you don't belong to me, and as for him--"

"Stop!" the girl cried.

The woman nodded.

"Quite right," she said. "I didn't mean to mention him. I won't again.
But we are different, aren't we? I wonder why you stay with me. I wonder
you don't go and make a home for yourself somewhere. I know that you hate
all the things I do, and care for, and all my friends. Why don't you go
away? It would be more comfortable for both of us!"

"I have no wish to go away," the girl said, softly, "and I don't think
that we interfere with one another very much, do we? This is the first
time I have ever made a remark about any--of your friends. To-night I
cannot help it. Sir Leslie Borrowdean is Mr. Mannering's enemy. I am sure
of it! That is why I do not like the idea of your going out with him. It
doesn't seem to be right--and I am afraid."

"Afraid! You little idiot!"

"Sir Leslie Borrowdean is a very clever man," the girl said. "He is a
very clever man, and he has been a lawyer. That sort of person knows how
to ask questions--to--find out things."

"Rubbish!" the woman remarked, sitting up on the couch. "Why do you try
to make me so uncomfortable, Hester? Sir Leslie may be very clever, but
I am not exactly a fool myself."

She spoke confidently, but under the delicate coating of rouge her cheeks
had whitened.

"Besides," she continued, "Sir Leslie has never even mentioned Mr.
Mannering's name in anything except the most casual way. You don't
understand everything, Hester. Of course Lena and Billy Aswell and Rothe
and all of them are all right, but they are just a little--well, you
would call it fast, and it does one good to be seen with a different set
sometimes. Sir Leslie Borrowdean and hi