o can prevent it? Who can prevent it?'

'There is you,' I said.

Lady Chichele laughed hysterically. 'I think you ought to say, "There
are you." I--what can I do? Do you realize that it's JUDY? My friend--my
other self? Do you think we can drag all that out of it? Do you think a
tie like that can be broken by an accident--by a misfortune? With it
all I ADORE Judy Harbottle. I love her, as I have always loved her,
and--it's damnable, but I don't know whether, whatever happened, I
wouldn't go on loving her.'

'Finish your peg,' I said. She was sobbing.

'Where I blame myself most,' she went on, 'is for not seeing in him
all that makes him mature to her--that makes her forget the absurd
difference between them, and take him simply and sincerely as I know she
does, as the contemporary of her soul if not of her body. I saw none of
that. Could I, as his mother? Would he show it to me? I thought him just
a charming boy, clever, too, of course, with nice instincts and well
plucked; we were always proud of that, with his delicate physique. Just
a boy! I haven't yet stopped thinking how different he looks without his
curls. And I thought she would be just kind and gracious and delightful
to him because he was my son.'

'There, of course,' I said, 'is the only chance.'

'Where--what?'

'He is your son.'

'Would you have me appeal to her? Do you know I don't think I could?'

'Dear me, no. Your case must present itself. It must spring upon her
and grow before her out of your silence, and if you can manage it, your
confidence. There is a great deal, after all, remember, to hold her in
that. I can't somehow imagine her failing you. Otherwise--'

Lady Chichele and I exchanged a glance of candid admission.

'Otherwise she would be capable of sacrificing everything--everything.
Of gathering her life into an hour. I know. And do you know if the thing
were less impossible, less grotesque, I should not be so much afraid?
I mean that the ABSOLUTE indefensibility of it might bring her a
recklessness and a momentum which might--'

'Send her over the verge,' I said. 'Well, go home and ask her to
dinner.'

There was a good deal more to say, of course, than I have thought proper
to put down here, but before Anna went I saw that she was keyed up to
the heroic part. This was none the less to her credit because it was the
only part, the dictation of a sense of expediency that despaired while
it dictated. The noble thing was her capac