“You will not mind my staying, I hope, George,” she said, as she resumed her seat.

“A delightful precedent, and from a distinguished source,” said the Rev. George.  “Allow me to pass the bottle.  Ha! ha!”

“Thank you, no,” said the Countess.  “I never take wine.”  Her tone was inconclusive, as if she intended to take something else.

“Will you take brandy-and-soda?” said her son, rather brusquely.

Lady Carbury lowered her eyelids in protest.  Then she said:  “A very little, if you please, Jasper.  I dare not touch wine,” she continued to the clergyman.  “I am the slave of my medical man in all matters relating to my unfortunate digestion.”

“Mother,” said Jasper, “George has brought us a nice piece of news concerning your pet Marmaduke.”

The clergyman became solemn and looked steadily at his glass.

“I do not know that it is fair to describe him as my pet exactly,” said the Countess, a little troubled.  “I trust there is nothing unpleasant the matter.”

“Oh, nothing!  He has settled down domestically in a mansion at West Kensington, that is all.”

“What!  Married!”

“Unhappily,” said the Rev. George, “no, not married.”

“Oh!” said the Countess slowly, as an expression of relief.  “It is very shocking, of course; very wrong indeed.  Young men will do these things.  It is especially foolish in Marmaduke’s case, for he really cannot afford to make any settlement such as this kind of complication usually involves when the time comes for getting rid of it.  Pray do not let it come to Constance’s ears.  It is not a proper subject for a girl.”

“Quite as proper a subject as marriage with a fellow like Marmaduke,” said Jasper, rising coolly and lighting a cigaret.  “However, it will be time enough to trouble about that when there is any sign of his having the slightest serious intentions toward Constance.  For my part I dont believe, and I never did believe, that there was anything real in the business.  This last move of his proves it—­to my satisfaction, at any rate.”

Lady Carbury, with a slight but impressive bridling, and yet with an evident sense of discomfiture, proceeded to assert herself before the clergyman.  “I beg you will control yourself, Jasper,” she said.  “I do not like to be spoken to in that tone.  In discharging the very great responsibility which rests with a mother, I am compelled to take the world as I find it, and to acknowledge that certain very deplorable tendencies must be allowed for in society.  You, in the solitude of your laboratory, contemplate an ideal state of things that we all, I am sure, long for, but which unhappily does not exist.  I have never enquired into Marmaduke’s private life, and I think you ought not to have done so.  I could not disguise from myself the possibility of his having entered into some such relations as those you have alluded to.”

Jasper, without the slightest appearance of having heard this speech, strolled casually out of the room.  The Countess, baffled, turned to her sympathetic guest.