Perhaps I had better go now," said Johnny. The old woman
looked at him with eyes which asked whether "he didn't wish he might
get it" as plainly as though the words had been pronounced. "Of
course I'll wait if I can be of any service," said Johnny.

"I must know more of this, sir, before you leave the house," said
Lady Demolines. He saw that between them both there might probably
be a very bad quarter of an hour in store for him; but he swore to
himself that no union of dragon and tigress should extract from him
a word that could be taken as a promise of marriage.

The old woman was now kneeling by the head of the sofa, and Johnny
was standing close by her side. Suddenly Madalina opened her
eyes,--opened them very wide and gazed around her. Then slowly she
raised herself on the sofa, and turned her face first upon her mother
and then upon Johnny. "You here, mamma!" she said.

"Dearest one, I am near you. Be not afraid," said her ladyship.

"Afraid! Why should I be afraid? John! My own John! Mamma, he is my
own." And she put out her arms to him, as though calling to him to
come to her. Things were now very bad with John Eames,--so bad that
he would have given a considerable lump out of Lord De Guest's legacy
to be able to escape at once into the street. The power of a woman,
when she chooses to use it recklessly, is, for the moment, almost
unbounded.

"I hope you find yourself a little better," said John, struggling to
speak, as though he were not utterly crushed by the occasion.

Lady Demolines slowly raised herself from her knees, helping herself
with her hands against the shoulder of the sofa,--for though still
very clever, she was old and stiff,--and then offered both her hands
to Johnny. Johnny cautiously took one of them, finding himself unable
to decline them both. "My son!" she exclaimed; and before he knew
where he was the old woman had succeeded in kissing his nose and
whiskers. "My son!" she said again.

Now that the time had come for facing the dragon and the tigress in
their wrath. If they were to be faced at all, the time for facing
them had certainly arrived. I fear that John's heart sank low in his
bosom at that moment. "I don't quite understand," he said, almost
in a whisper. Madalina put out one arm towards him, and the fingers
trembled. Her lips were opened, and the white row of interior ivory
might be seen plainly; but at the present conjuncture of affairs
she spoke not a word. She spoke not a