.. or ... or...."

"I couldn't, Joe! It's impossible ... utterly...."

"Think of Bobby...."

She coloured deeper than ever.

"I should never maintain my son on Morris's money," she said proudly.

"But, Sophy!... Oh, dog my buttons!..." groaned the harried man. "You've
got to _live_...."

"You forget what you saved for me, Joe ... and my thousand a year."

"Saved! About twenty thousand. How will you eat and clothe yourself and
the boy and educate him on the income of such a sum? I'm not talking
high sentiment; I'm talking hard facts," wound up the Judge, much
excited.

Charlotte sat motionless, looking at them. Sophy's eyes had gone black.

"I'll ... I'll ... sing for my living and Bobby's first," she said.

"Pooh!" said the Judge.

He was quite reckless. He, like Charlotte, sympathised too much in one
way with this quixotic attitude of hers not to feel called on to
remonstrate vigorously in another. He kept telling himself that Sophy
was being hifalutin in addition to being rash. He must save her from
hifalutiness at least.

"Pooh!" he said again hardily. "As Chartie said, let's talk sense. What
about Bobby's education?... Eton--Oxford ... this tutor who's coming in
a day or two? Do you think you're going to get divorced and established
at the Metropolitan in time to pay for all that?"

"_Joe!_" cried Charlotte.

"Never mind.... I like him to speak out," said Sophy bravely, a scarlet
spot on either cheek. Then an inspiration came to her.

"Gerald will educate Bobby for me," she said. "I know he will! I shall
write to Gerald and tell him the whole truth. He has always been like a
true brother to me."

The Judge was thinking hard and quickly.

"Yes--and suppose he dies suddenly--what then?"

"How 'what then'?" asked Sophy, bewildered.

"Why, what about the property? Is it all entailed--or only partly!"

"I ... I ... don't know," faltered Sophy.

"Very well. If Lord Wychcote dies suddenly, Bobby will inherit ... as I
understand it. But if the property is all entailed, your brother-in-law
can't leave _you_ anything. The property would be in trust for Bobby
until he came of age legally. It would depend entirely on the Court what
you had as his mother. Suppose you found yourself more or less at the
mercy of the old lady--Bobby getting his education in England--as you've
promised he should, mind you--and you without the means to live near
him---- Eh? What then?"

"I ... I will write to Mr. Surtees,"