“Oh, don’t go!” she cried.  “Don’t take him away!  You know they are trying to separate us.  Oh, Mrs. Wayne, won’t you take me in?  Can’t I stay with you while we are waiting?”

At this every one focused their eyes on Mrs. Wayne.  Pete felt sorry for his mother, knowing how she hated to make a sudden decision, knowing how she hated to do anything disagreeable to those about her; but he never for an instant doubted what her decision would be.  Therefore he could hardly believe his eyes when he saw her shaking her head.

“I couldn’t do that, my dear.”

“Mother!”

“Of course you couldn’t,” said Mr. Lanley, blowing his nose immediately after under the tremendous emotion of finding that she was not an enemy, after all.  Adelaide smiled to herself.  She was thinking, “You could and would, if I hadn’t put in that sting about his failures.”

“Why can’t you, Mother?” asked Pete.

“We’ll talk that over at home.”

“My dear boy,” said Mr. Lanley, kindly, “no one over thirty would have to ask why.”

“No parent likes to assist at the kidnapping of another parent’s child,” said Adelaide.

“Good Heavens! my mother has kidnapped so many children in her day!”

“From the wrong sort of home, I suppose,” said Lanley, in explanation, to no one, perhaps, so much as to himself.

“Am I to infer that she thinks mine the right sort?  How delightful!” said Adelaide.

“Mrs. Wayne, is it because I’m richer than Pete that you won’t take me in?” asked Mathilde, visions of bestowing her wealth in charity flitting across her mind.

The other nodded.  Wayne stared.

“Mother,” he said, “you don’t mean to say you are letting yourself be influenced by a taunt like that of Mrs. Farron’s, which she didn’t even believe herself?”

Mrs. Wayne was shocked.

“Oh, no; not that, Pete.  It isn’t that at all.  But when a girl has been brought up—­”

Wayne saw it all in an instant.

“Oh, yes, I see.  We’ll talk of that later.”

But Adelaide had seen, too.

“No; do go on, Mrs. Wayne.  You don’t approve of the way my daughter has been brought up.”

“I don’t think she has been brought up to be a poor man’s wife.”

“No.  I own I did not have that particular destiny in mind.”

“And when I heard you assuming just now that every one was always concerned about money, and when I realized that the girl must have been brought up in that atmosphere and belief—­”

“I see.  You thought she was not quite the right wife for your son?”

“But I would try so hard,” said Mathilde.  “I would learn; I—­”

“Mathilde,” interrupted her mother, “when a lady tells you you are not good enough for her son, you must not protest.”

“Come, come, Adelaide, there is no use in being disagreeable,” said Mr. Lanley.

“Disagreeable!” returned his daughter.  “Mrs. Wayne and I are entirely agreed.  She thinks her son too good for my daughter, and I think my daughter too good for her son.  Really, there seems nothing more to be said.  Good-by, Mr. Wayne.”  She held out her long, white hand to him.  Mrs. Wayne was trying to make her position clearer to Mathilde, but Pete thought this an undesirable moment for such an attempt.