w fine! Geoffry, how are you getting on, professionally,
anyhow?"

"Better than my best hope, dear; far better. I've shot right up!"

"Then why do you look so weary and care-worn?"

"I don't. I'm older, that's all, dear."

"Oh! Prospering and care-free, and yet you'd drop everything and go to
France, to war."

"No, dearie, no. I'm sorry I wrote you what I did, but I only said I
felt like it. I don't now. I envied those Royal Street boys, who
could do that with a splendid conscience. I--I can't. I can't go
killing men, even murderers, for a remote personal reason. I must wait
till my own country calls and my patriotism is pure patriotism. That's
higher honor--to _her_, isn't it?"

"It is to you; I'm not bothering about her."

"You will when you see her, first sight. To-morrow afternoon, you say.
Wish I could be there when your eyes first light on her! Mother,
dearie, isn't it as much she as I you've come to see?"

"Well, if it is, what then?"

"I'm glad. But I draw the line at seeing. _Help_, you understand, I
don't want--I won't have!"

"Why, Geoffry, I----!"

"Oh, I say it because there isn't one of that kind-hearted coterie who
hasn't wanted to put in something in my favor. I forbid! A dozen to
one--I won't allow it! No, nor any two to one, not even we two. Win
or lose, I go it alone. 'Twould be fatal to do otherwise if I would.
You'll see that the minute you see her."

"Why, Geoffry! What a heat!"

"Oh, I'll be the only one burned. Good night. I can't see you
to-morrow before evening. Shall we dine here?"

"Yes. Oh, Geoffry--that New York letter! Manuscript accepted?"

A shade crossed the son's brow. "Don't you think I ought to tell her
first?"

"Her first," the mother--the _mother_--repeated after him. "Maybe so;
I don't care." They kissed. "Good night."

"Good night . . . good night . . . good night, dear, darling mother.
Good night!"

XLVIII

At the batten door of her high, tight garden-fence Mlle. Yvonne, we
repeat, let in Mme. De l'Isle and Mrs. Chester.

"Mother of--ah-h-h!" Her rapture was mated to such courteous restraint
that dinginess and dishevelment were easily overlooked. "And 'ow
marvellouz that is, that you 'appen to come juz' when he--and us--we're
getting that news of the manu'----"

"What! accepted?"

"Oh, _that_ we di'n' hear _yet_! We only hear he's hear' something,
but we're sure tha'z the only something he can hear!" She had b