one is easily borne off on waves of sentiment or imagination; and it is possible that, if his mother had been able to refrain from improving perfection, he might have found himself sufficiently in love with Margaret for all practical purposes.  But Mrs. Culpeper, who had no need of dissimulation since she had always got things by showing that she wanted them entirely for the good of others, was incapable of leaving her son to work out his own future.  When he entered the house again he found her awaiting him at the foot of the staircase.

“I hope you had a pleasant evening, Stephen.”

“Yes, Mother, very pleasant.”

“Margaret is a dear girl, and so well brought up.  Her mother has a great deal for which to be thankful.”

“A great deal, I am sure.”  A sharp sense of irritation had dispelled the dreamy sentiment with which he had parted from Margaret.  To his mother, he knew, the evening appeared only as one more carefully planned and carelessly neglected opportunity; and the knowledge of this exasperated him in a measure that was absurdly disproportionate to the cause.

“She is so refreshing after the things you hear about other girls,” pursued Mrs. Culpeper.  “Poor Mrs. St. John was obliged to go to a rest cure, they say, because of the worry she has had over Geraldine; and the other girls are almost as troublesome, I suppose.  That is why I am so thankful that you should have taken a fancy to Margaret.  She is just the kind of girl I should like to have for a daughter-in-law.”

“You’ll have a long time to wait, Mother.  I don’t want to marry anybody until I need a nurse in my old age.”

He spoke jestingly, but his mother, with her usual tenacity, held fast to the subject.  Under the flickering gas light in the hall (they were still suspicious of the effect of electricity on Mr. Culpeper’s eyes) her face looked grimly determined, as if an indomitable purpose had moulded every feature and traced every line in some thin plastic substance.

“I have set my heart on this, Stephen.”

At this he laughed aloud with an indecorous mirth.  In spite of her instincts and traditions how lacking in feminine finesse, how utterly without subtlety of method she was!  She had stood always for the unconquerable will in the fragile body, and she had used to the utmost her two strong weapons of obstinacy and weakness.  He did not know whether the dread of being nagged or the fear of hurting her had influenced him most; and when he looked back he could recall only a series of ineffectual efforts at evasion or denial.  It is true that he had once adored her—­that he still loved her—­but it was a love, like his father’s, which was forbearing but never free, which was always furtive and a little ashamed of its own weakness.  Ever since he could remember she had triumphed over their inclinations, their convictions, and even their appetites, for they had eaten only what she thought good for them.  She had invariably gained her point; and she had gained it with few words, without temper or agitation, by sheer force of character.  If she had been a moral principle she could not have moved more relentlessly.