* * * * *

On a hint from his mother, Marsham went to say good-night to her in her room.  She threw her arms round his neck, whispering:  “Dear Oliver!—­dear Oliver!—­I just wished you to know—­if it is as I think—­that you had my blessing.”

He drew back, a little shrinking and reluctant—­yet still flushed, as it were, with the last rays Diana’s sun had shed upon him.

“Things mustn’t be hurried, mother.”

“No—­no—­they sha’n’t.  But you know how I have wished to see you happy—­how ambitious I have been for you!”

“Yes, mother, I know.  You have been always very good to me.”  He had recovered his composure, and stood holding her hand and smiling at her.

“What a charming creature, Oliver!  It is a pity, of course, her father has indoctrinated her with those opinions, but—­”

“Opinions!” he said, scornfully—­“what do they matter!” But he could not discuss Diana.  His blood was still too hot within him.

“Of course—­of course!” said Lady Lucy, soothingly.  “She is so young—­she will develop.  But what a wife, Oliver, she will make—­how she might help a man on—­with her talents and her beauty and her refinement.  She has such dignity, too, for her years.”

He made no reply, except to repeat: 

“Don’t hurry it, mother—­don’t hurry it.”

“No—­no”—­she said, laughing—­“I am not such a fool.  There will be many natural opportunities of meeting.”

“There are some difficulties with the Vavasours.  They have been disagreeable about the gardens.  Ferrier and I have promised to go over and advise her.”

“Good!” said Lady Lucy, delighted that the Vavasours had been disagreeable.  “Good-night, my son, good-night!”

A minute later Oliver stood meditating in his own room, where he had just donned his smoking-jacket.  By one of the natural ironies of life, at a moment when he was more in love than he had ever been yet, he was, nevertheless, thinking eagerly of prospects and of money.  Owing to his peculiar relation to his mother, and his father’s estate, marriage would be to him no mere satisfaction of a personal passion.  It would be a vital incident in a politician’s career, to whom larger means and greater independence were now urgently necessary.  To marry with his mother’s full approval would at last bring about that provision for himself which his father’s will had most unjustly postponed.  He was monstrously dependent upon her.  It had been one of the chief checks on a strong and concentrated ambition.  But Lady Lucy had long made him understand that to marry according to her wishes would mean emancipation:  a much larger income in the present, and the final settlement of her will in his favor.  It was amazing how she had taken to Diana!  Diana had only to accept him, and his future was secured.