d to her forehead.

But Mrs. Austen persisted. "It is important."

Margaret's eyes were open. She closed them and said: "Yes, mother, what
is it?"

Through the door came light from the hall. Mrs. Austen looked about.
Nearby was a chair on which was one of those garments, made of
franfreluches, which the French call a Jump-from-bed. Removing it, she
sat down.

"It is too bad. I know you don't feel like discussing affairs of State,
but it is Luxemburg all over again. If I were alone concerned, I am sure
I would capitulate. But where the State is concerned, and by that I mean
you, I am like the little grand-duchess--pretty child, from her
pictures, didn't you think?--and I must resist the invader. It is true,
I don't know exactly what the grand-duchess did do, though they said she
sat in a motor on a bridge and flourished a revolver. But you never can
tell. I daresay she and her maids of honour hid in a cellar. Perhaps we
may have to."

Margaret lowered her hand. "Mother, what are you talking about?"

"Your young man, of course. What else? A half-hour ago, he was roaring
and stamping about and calling me a liar. If it had not been for my dead
body, he would have rushed in here and killed you. My dead body, or what
I told him about passing over it, was the revolver that I flourished. He
has gone, but he swore he would return. Now, unless you rally to the
colours, we will have to hide in the cellar, or rather, as we haven't
any, in the pantry. Don't you think you could eat a bit of sweetbread,
or perhaps some almond pudding?"

Again Margaret put her hand to her forehead. "Don't say that, mother.
Keith did not call you a liar and it is not like him to roar and stamp
about."

"My dear, I don't wonder you don't believe me. He went on like a madman.
He could not get over the fact that his dollymop was one too many for
you. He seemed to think that it was none of your business."

"Don't."

"My dear Margaret, you must do me the justice to admit that I stood up
for him. I said he was an attractive young man. So he is. But that is
just it. Attractive young men are most unreliable and reliable young men
are most unattractive. At your age, I used to like them fair and false.
That was your father's fault. He perverted me. He was so domestic!"

It was an old wound that Mrs. Austen touched then and under it Margaret
winced. "The poor dear! He was a saint and you know it."

"Know it! I should say I did. I know too that he ma