not the best judge of what's good for him."

"I've done my duty to him," she said, "and that's all I could do. I'm
very sorry for him, and what love I've got for him is the sort that's
akin to pity. It's contrary to reason that I should take any deep joy in
him, or worship the ground he walks on, like other mothers do towards
their children. For he stands there before me for ever as the sign and
mark of my own failure in life. But I don't think any less of him for
trying to destroy the works. I'd decided about him long ago."

Raymond found nothing to the purpose in this illusive talk. It argued
curious impassivity in Sabina he thought, and he felt jarred to find the
conventional attitude of mother to son was not acknowledged by her.
Estelle had showed far more feeling, had taken a much more active part
in the troubles of Abel. Estelle had spared no pains in arguing for the
child and imploring Ironsyde to exhaust his credit on Abel's behalf.

He told Sabina this and she explained it.

"I dare say she has. A woman can see why, though doubtless you cannot.
It isn't because he's himself that she's active for him; and it isn't
because he's my child, either. It's because he's your child. Your
blood's sacred in her eyes you may be sure. She was a child herself when
you ruined me; she forgets all that. Why? Because ever since she's grown
to womanhood and intelligence to note what happens, you have been a
saint of virtue and the friend of the weak and the champion of the poor.
So, of course, she feels that such a great and good man's son only wants
his father's care to make him great and good too."

"To think you can talk so after all these years, Sabina," he said.

"How should I talk? What are the years to me? You never knew, or
understood, or respected the stuff I was made of; and you'll never
understand your child, either, or the stuff he's made of; and you can
tell the young woman that loves you so much, that she's wrong--as wrong
as can be. Nothing's gained by your having any hand in Abel's future.
You won't win him with sugarplums now, any more than you will with money
later on. He's made of different stuff from you--and better stuff and
rarer stuff. There's very little of you in him and very little of me,
either. He's himself, and the fineness that might have made him a useful
man under fair conditions, is turned to foulness now. Your child was
ruined in the making--not by me, but by you yourself. And such is his
mi