orget to whom you are speaking! I love my mother," said Mary, her
feeling rising with every word. "I won't have her so spoken of! Not
have her enter the house again? Why, do you suppose I am going to meet
her in the street, and send her clothes after her as if she were a
discharged servant?"

"She may come here for her clothes," George conceded, "but she shall
not spend another night under my roof. Let her try taking care of
herself for a change!"

There was a silence.

"George, DON'T you see how unreasonable you are?" Mary said, after a
bitter struggle for calm.

"That's final," George said briefly.

"I don't know what you mean by final," his wife answered with warmth.
"If you really think--"

"I won't argue it, my dear. And I won't have my life ruined by your
mother, as thousands of men's lives have been ruined, by just such
unscrupulous irresponsible women!"

"George," said Mary, very white, "I won't turn against my mother!"

"Then you turn against me," George said in a deadly calm.

"Do you expect her to board, George, in the same city that I have my
home?" Mary demanded, after a pause.

"Plenty of women do it," George said inflexibly.

"But, George, you know Mamma! She'd simply be here all the time; it
would come to exactly the same thing. She'd come after breakfast, and
you'd have to take her home after dinner. She'd have her clothes made
here, and laundered here, and she'd do all her telephoning..."

"That is exactly what has got to stop," said George. "I will pay her
board at some good place. But I'll pay it... she won't touch the money.
Besides that, she can have an allowance. But she must understand that
she is NOT to come here except when she is especially invited, at
certain intervals."

"George, DEAR, that is absolutely absurd!"

"Very well," George said, flushing, "but if she is here to-night, I
will not come home. I'll dine at the club. When she has gone, I'll come
home again."

Mary's head was awhirl. She scarcely knew where the conversation was
leading then, or what the reckless things they said involved. She was
merely feeling blindly now for the arguments that should give her the
advantage.

"You needn't stay at the club, George," she said, "for Mamma and I will
go down to Beach Meadow. When you have come to your senses, I'll come
back. I'll let Miss Fox go, and Mamma and I will look out for the
children--"

"I warn you," George interrupted her coldly, "that if you take any such