oluntarily.

"Her mother has never visited me," Mrs. Quentin finished for him.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Mrs. Fenno has the scope of a wax doll. Her
rule of conduct is taken from her grandmother's sampler."

"But the daughter is so modern--and yet--"

"The result is the same? Not exactly. _She_ admires you--oh,
immensely!" He replaced the bronze and turned to his mother with a
smile. "Aren't you on some hospital committee together? What especially
strikes her is your way of doing good. She says philanthropy is not a
line of conduct, but a state of mind--and it appears that you are one
of the elect."

As, in the vague diffusion of physical pain, relief seems to come with
the acuter pang of a single nerve, Mrs. Quentin felt herself suddenly
eased by a rush of anger against the girl. "If she loved you--" she
began.

His gesture checked her. "I'm not asking you to get her to do that."

The two were again silent, facing each other in the disarray of a
common catastrophe--as though their thoughts, at the summons of danger,
had rushed naked into action. Mrs. Quentin, at this revealing moment,
saw for the first time how many elements of her son's character had
seemed comprehensible simply because they were familiar: as, in reading
a foreign language, we take the meaning of certain words for granted
till the context corrects us. Often as in a given case, her maternal
musings had figured his conduct, she now found herself at a loss to
forecast it; and with this failure of intuition came a sense of the
subserviency which had hitherto made her counsels but the anticipation
of his wish. Her despair escaped in the moan, "What _is_ it you ask me?"

"To talk to her."

"Talk to her?"

"Show her--tell her--make her understand that the paper has always been
a thing outside your life--that hasn't touched you--that needn't touch
_her_. Only, let her hear you--watch you--be with you--she'll see...she
can't help seeing..."

His mother faltered. "But if she's given you her reasons--?"

"Let her give them to you! If she can--when she sees you...." His
impatient hand again displaced the wrestler. "I care abominably," he
confessed.

II

On the Fenno threshold a sudden sense of the futility of the attempt
had almost driven Mrs. Quentin back to her carriage; but the door was
already opening, and a parlor-maid who believed that Miss Fenno was in
led the way to the depressing drawing-room. It was the kind of room in
which no m