Her delicate features, under the crown of white hair, were once more flooded with color, and the passion in her eyes held them steady under Sir James’s penetrating look.  Through his inner mind there ran the cry:  “Pharisee!—­Hypocrite!”

But he fought on.

“Lady Lucy!—­your son loves this girl—­remember that!  And in herself you admit that she is blameless—­all that you could desire for his wife—­remember that also.”

“I remember both.  But I was brought up by people who never admitted that any feeling was beyond our control or ought to be indulged—­against right and reason.”

“Supposing Oliver entirely declines to take your view?—­supposing he marries Miss Mallory?”

“He will not break my heart,” she said, drawing a quicker breath.  “He will get over it.”

“But if he persists?”

“He must take the consequences.  I cannot aid and abet him.”

“And the girl herself?  She has accepted him.  She is young, innocent, full of tender and sensitive feeling.  Is it possible that you should not weigh her claim against your fears and scruples?”

“I feel for her most sincerely.”

Sir James suddenly threw out a restless foot, which caught Lady Lucy’s fox terrier, who was snoozing under the tea-table.  He hastily apologized, and the speaker resumed: 

“But, in my opinion, she would do a far nobler thing if she regarded herself as bound to some extent to bear her mother’s burden—­to pay her mother’s debt to society.  It may sound harsh—­but is it?  Is a dedicated life necessarily an unhappy life?  Would not everybody respect and revere her?  She would sacrifice herself, as the Sister of Mercy does, or the missionary, and she would find her reward.  But to enter a family with an unstained record, bearing with her such a name and such associations, would be, in my opinion, a wrong and selfish act!”

Lady Lucy drew herself to her full height.  In the dusk of the declining afternoon the black satin and white ruffles of her dress, her white head in its lace cap, her thin neck and shoulders, her tall slenderness, and the rigidity of her attitude, made a formidable study in personality.  Sir James’s whole soul rose in one scornful and indignant protest.  But he felt himself beaten.  The only hope lay in Oliver himself.

He rose slowly from his chair.

“It is useless, I see, to try and argue the matter further.  But I warn you:  I do not believe that Oliver will obey you, and—­forgive me Lady Lucy!—­but—­frankly—­I hope he will not.  Nor will he suffer too severely, even if you, his mother, desert him.  Miss Mallory has some fortune—­”

“Oliver will not live upon his wife!”

“He may accept her aid till he has found some way of earning money.  What amazes me—­if you will allow me the liberty of an old friend—­is that you should think a woman justified in coercing a son of mature age in such a matter!”