to show me _why_--and again I feel that you are right. A
professional life for me would mean, I see it now, the loss of things
more precious. I will give it up, and live quietly at home. I will have
regular hours for teaching Hughie. If you prefer it, Pauline shall go,
and I will take charge of him altogether. If I do this, what need for
us to remove? The house is more comfortable than the new one at
Gunnersbury; we are accustomed to it; and by being farther from London
I shall have less temptation to gad about. I know exactly what I am
promising, and I feel I _can_ do it, now that my mind is made up.

'Need I fear a refusal? I can't think so. Give the matter your best
thought, and see whether there are not several reasons on my side. But,
please, answer as soon as you can, for I shall be in suspense till I
hear from you.

Alma signed herself 'Yours ever affectionately', but Harvey could find
no trace of affection in the letter. It astonished and annoyed him. Of
course, it could have but one explanation; Alma might as well have
saved herself trouble by writing, in a line or two, that she disliked
Mrs. Abbott, and could not bear that the child should be taught by her.
He read through the pages again, and grew angry. What right had she to
make such a request as this, and in the tone of a demand? Twice in the
letter she asserted that she _had_ a right, asserted it as if with some
mysterious reference. Had he sat down immediately to reply, Harvey
would have written briefly forcibly; for, putting aside other grounds
of irritation, there is nothing a man dislikes more than being called
upon at last moment to upset elaborate and troublesome arrangements.
But he was obliged to postpone his answer for a few hours, and in the
meantime he grew more tolerant of Alma's feelings. Had her objection
come earlier, accompanied by the same proposals, he would have been
inclined to listen; but things had gone too far. He wrote, quite
good-temperedly, but without shadow of wavering. There was nothing
sudden, he pointed out, in the step he was about to take; Alma had
known it for months, and had acquiesced in it. As for her music, he
quite agreed with her that she would find it better in every way to
abandon thoughts of a public career; and the fact of Hughie's going to
school for two or three hours a day would in no wise interfere with her
wish to see more of him. What her precise meaning was in saying that
she had some 'right' to make th