t one of Esther's graces, but whom he adored
because she was the most beautiful of mothers. Would she be horrified at
the little strange animal that had looked at him out of Esther's eyes?
He had never seen his mother shocked at anything. But that, he told
himself, was because she was so calm. The Woman's Club of Addington
could have told him it was because she had poise. She looked up, as he
stood in the doorway, and laid her book face downward on the bed.
Usually when he came in like this she moved the reading candle round, so
that the hood should shield his eyes. But to-night she gently turned it
toward him, and Alston did not realise that was because his fagged face
and disordered hair had made her anxious to understand the quicker what
had happened to him.

I "Sit down," she said.

And then, having fairly seen him, she did turn the hood. Alston dropped
into the chair by the bedside and looked at her. She was a plain woman,
it is true, but of heroic lines. Her iron-grey hair was brushed smoothly
back into its two braids, and her nightgown, with its tiny edge, was of
the most pronouncedly sensible cut, of high neck and long sleeves. Yet
there was nothing uncouth about her in her elderly ease of dress and
manner. She was a wholesome woman, and the heart of her son turned
pathetically to her.

"Mary gone to bed?" he asked.

"Yes," said Mrs. Choate. "She was tired. She's been rehearsing a dance
with those French girls and their class."

Alston lay back in his chair, regarding her with hot, tired eyes. He
wanted to know what she thought of a great many things: chiefly whether
a woman who had married Jeff Blake need be afraid of him. But there was
a well-defined code between his mother and himself. He was not willing
to trap her into honest answers where he couldn't put honest questions.

"Mother," said he, and didn't know why he began or indeed that he was
going to say just that at all, "do you ever wish you could run away?"

She gave the corner of the book a pat with one beautiful hand.

"I do run away," she said. "I was a good many miles from here when you
came in. And I shall be again when you are gone. Among the rogues, such
as we don't see."

"What is it?"

"Mysteries of Paris."

"That's our vice, isn't it," said Alston, "yours and mine, novel
reading?"

"You're marked with it," said she.

There was something in the quiet tone that arrested him and made him
look at her more sharply. The tone seemed