this male incursion into
spring-cleaning. She had not informed the surrounding air that she
failed to understand why them as were in London couldn't stop
in London for a bit, as his mother had. Moreover, though the
spring-cleaning fully entitled her to wear a white apron at meals, she
was not wearing a white apron: which was a sign to him that she still
loved him enough to want to please him. On the whole he was fairly
optimistic about his plan of salvation. Nevertheless, it was not until
nearly the end of the meal--when one of his mother's apple-pies was
being consumed--that he began to try to broach it.

"Nell," he said, "I suppose you wouldn't care to come to London with
me?"

"Oh!" she answered smiling, a smile of a peculiar quality. It was
astonishing how that simple woman could put just one tenth of one per
cent of irony into a good-natured smile. "What's the meaning of this?"
Then she flushed. The flush touched Edward Henry in an extraordinary
manner.

("To think," he reflected incredulously, "that only last night I
was talking in the dark to Elsie April--and here I am now!" And he
remembered the glory of Elsie's frock, and her thrilling voice in the
gloom, and that pose of hers as she leaned dimly forward.)

"Well," he said aloud, as naturally as he could, "that theatre's
beginning to get up on its hind-legs now, and I should like you to see
it."

A difficult pass for him, as regards his mother! This was the first
time he had ever overtly spoken of the theatre in his mother's
presence. In the best bedroom he had talked of it--but even there with
a certain self-consciousness and false casualness. Now, his mother
stared straight in front of her with an expression of which she alone
among human beings had the monopoly.

"I should like to," said Nellie, generously.

"Well," said he, "I've got to go back to town to-morrow. Wilt come
with me, lass?"

"Don't be silly, Edward Henry," said she. "How can I leave mother in
the middle of all this spring-cleaning?"

"You needn't leave mother. We'll take her too," said Edward Henry,
lightly.

"You won't!" observed Mrs. Machin.

"I _have to_ go to-morrow, Nell," said Edward Henry. "And I was
thinking you might as well come with me. It will be a change for you."

(He said to himself, "And not only have I to go to-morrow, but you
absolutely must come with me, my girl. That's the one thing to do.")

"It would be a change for me," Nellie agreed--she was beyond d