The young fellow’s face grew red: 

“She was engaged in—­the drama.”

“What!”

“She was an actress,” he said, realising now the utter absurdity of any hope from the beginning, yet now committed and determined to see it through to the bitter end.

“An actress!  Louis!” faltered his mother.

There was a silence, cut like a knife by the thin edge of his father’s voice: 

“If she was an actress, what is she now?”

“She has helped me with my painting.”

“Helped you?  How?”

“By—­posing.”

“Do you desire me to understand that the girl is an artist’s model!”

“Yes.”

His father stared at him a moment, then: 

“And is this the woman you propose to have your mother meet?”

“Father,” he said, hopelessly, “there is no use in my saying anything more.  Miss West is a sweet, good, generous young girl, fully my peer in education, my superior in many things....  You and mother can never believe that the ideas, standards—­even the ideals of civilisation change—­have changed since your youth—­are changing every hour.  In your youth the word actress had a dubious significance; to-day it signifies only what the character of her who wears the title signifies.  In your youth it was immodest, unmaidenly, reprehensible, for a woman to be anything except timid, easily abashed, ignorant of vital truths, and submissive to every social convention; to-day women are neither ignorant nor timid; they are innocent because they choose to be; they are fearless, intelligent, ambitious, and self-reliant—­and lose nothing in feminine charm by daring to be themselves instead of admitting their fitness only for the seraglio of some Occidental monogamist—­”

“Louis!  Your mother is present!”

“Good heavens, father, I know it!  Isn’t it possible even for a man’s own mother to hear a little truth once in a while—­”

His father rose in pallid wrath: 

“Be silent!” he said, unsteadily; “the subject is definitely ended.”

* * * * *

It was ended.  His father gave him a thin, chilly hand at parting.  But his mother met him at the outer door and laid her trembling lips to his forehead.

“You won’t bring this shame on us, Louis, I know.  Nor on yourself, nor on the name you bear....  It is an honourable name in the land, Louis....  I pray God to bless you and counsel you, my son—­” She turned away, adding in a whisper—­“and—­and comfort you.”

And so he went away from Spindrift House through a snow-storm, and arrived in New York late that evening; but not too late to call Valerie on the telephone and hear again the dear voice with its happy little cry of greeting—­and the promise of to-morrow’s meeting before the day of duty should begin.

* * * * *

Love grew as the winter sped glittering toward the far primrose dawn of spring; work filled their days; evening brought the happiness of a reunion eternally charming in its surprises, its endless novelty.  New, forever new, love seemed; and youth, too, seemed immortal.