oes that matter? There is room, I hope, at all times for the
master of the house."

"You ask me," she said, "to turn all my life upside down, to change my
habits and arrangements, at a moment's notice. But you have not told me
why. Have you told me? You have said that my little boy of twelve has
offended you, and that you knocked him down. Is that why I must change
my house, and all my life?"

The slow steadiness of her tone made him frantic; that, more than the
deliberate way in which she was putting him in the wrong.

"I have told you," he cried, "that I am in a false position altogether,
and that I will not bear it any longer! You ought to see that I am in a
false position. As for your little boy--of twelve----"

"What of him?" she asked, growing very pale, and rising again from her
seat.

"Only this one thing, Frances: that you can't serve God and mammon, you
know; you can't keep both. You must choose between him and me."

"Choose!" She sat down again suddenly, as if her strength had failed
her. "Choose! between Geoff, my little Geoff--my boy--my
baby--Geoff----"

There was a kind of ridicule in her voice, a ridicule which was tragic,
which was full of passion, which sounded like a scoff at something
preposterous, as well as an indignant protest.

"Your scorn does not make it different. Yes, Geoff, who is all that: and
me--between him and me."

For a moment they gazed at each other, having arrived at that decisive
point, in a duel of the kind, when neither antagonist can find a word
more to say. Lady Markland was very pale. She had been brought in a
moment from her ease and quiet, when she expected no harm, to what might
be the most momentous decision. She was still feeble, her nerves strained
and weak from the long tension at which they had been held. She had
clasped her hands together, and the fingers quivered. Her eyes seemed
to grow larger and more luminous as she looked at him. "Theo," she said
with a long breath. "Theo! do you know--what you are saying? Do you
mean--all that--all that?"

He thought he was going to get an easy, an unlooked-for victory; he
congratulated himself with a swift flash of premature triumph that he
had pushed matters to a crisis, that he had been so firm. "Yes," he
cried, "I mean it all! We can't go on longer as we are. You must choose
between him and me."

She kept looking at him, still without relaxing from that fixed gaze.
"Do you know what you are asking?" she said ag