They walked on in silence for a while, then his mother said: 

“Mr. Querida was here.  Is he a friend of yours?”

Neville hesitated:  “I’ll tell you, mother,” he said, “I don’t find Querida personally very congenial.  But I have no doubt he’s an exceedingly nice fellow.  And he’s far and away the best painter in America....  When did he go back to town?”

“Last week.  I did not care for him.”

“You and father seldom do care for new acquaintances,” he rejoined, smiling.  “Don’t you think it is about time for you to emerge from your shells and make up your minds that a few people have been born since you retired?”

“People have been born in China, too, but that scarcely interests your father and me.”

“Let it interest you, mother.  You have no idea how amusing new people are.  That’s the way to keep young, too.”

“It is a little too late for us to think of youth—­or to think as youth thinks—­even if it were desirable.”

“It is desirable.  Youth—­which will be age to-morrow—­may venture to draw a little consideration in advance—­”

“My children interest me—­and I give their youth my full consideration.  But I can scarcely be expected to find any further vital interest in youth—­and in the complexity of its modern views and ideas.  You ask impossibilities of two very old people.”

“I do not mean to.  I ask only, then, that you and father take a vital and intelligent interest in me.  Will you, mother?”

“Intelligent?  What do you mean, Louis?”

“I mean,” he said, “that you might recognise my right to govern my own conduct; that you might try to sympathise with views which are not your own—­with the ideas, ideals, desires, convictions which, if modern, are none the less genuine—­and are mine.”

There was a brief silence; then: 

“Louis, are you speaking with any thought of—­that woman in your mind?” she asked in a voice that quivered slightly.

“Yes, mother.”

“I knew it,” she said, under her breath; “I knew it was that—­I knew what had changed you—­was changing you.”

“Have I altered for the worse?”

“I don’t know—­I don’t know, Louis!” She was leaning heavily on his elbow now; he put one arm around her and they walked very slowly over the fragrant grass.

“First of all, mother, please don’t call her, ‘that woman.’  Because she is a very sweet, innocent, and blameless girl....  Will you let me tell you a little about her?”

His mother bent her head in silence; and for a long while he talked to her of Valerie.

The sun still hung high over the Estwich hills when he ended.  His mother, pale, silent, offered no comment until, in his trouble, he urged her.  Then she said: 

“Your father will never consent.”

“Let me talk to father.  Will you consent?”

“I—­Louis—­it would break our hearts if—­”