It is with quite a resigned air that he seats himself on the lounge, and agrees with himself to make his mother happy by letting her talk to him uninterruptedly for ten minutes.

“Women like to talk,” says Sir Maurice to himself, as he sits on the lounge where Marian had just now sat.  He finds consolation in his mother’s poodle, who climbs on his knees, giving herself up a willing prey to his teasing.

“Maurice, you are not attending,” says Lady Rylton at last, with a touch of serious anger.

“I am indeed—­I am, I assure you,” says Maurice, looking up.  “If I’m not, it’s your poodle’s fault; she is such a fascinating creature.”

As he says this he makes a little attack on the poodle, who snaps back at him, barking vigorously, and evidently enjoying herself immensely.

“I want a decisive answer from you,” says his mother.

“A decisive answer!  How can I give that?”

He is still laughing, but even as he laughs a sound from without checks him.  It is another laugh—­happy, young, joyous.  Instinctively both he and Lady Rylton look towards the open window.  There below, still attended by Mr. Gower, and coming back from her charitable visit to the swans, is Tita, her little head upheld, her bright eyes smiling, her lips parted.  There is a sense of picturesque youth about the child that catches Rylton’s attention, and holds it for the moment.

“There she is,” says he at last, looking back over his shoulder at his mother.  “Is that the wife you have meted out for me—­that baby?”

“Be serious about it, Maurice; it is a serious latter, I assure you.”

“Fancy being serious with a baby!  She’s too young, my dear mother.  She couldn’t know her duty to her neighbours yet, to say nothing of her duty to her husband.”

“You could teach her.”

“I doubt it.  They have taken that duty off nowadays, haven’t they?” He is still looking at Tita through the window; her gay little laugh comes up to him again.  “Do you know, she is very pretty,” says he dispassionately; “and what a little thing!  She always makes me think of a bird, or a mouse, or a——­”

“Think of her as a girl,” says his mother impatiently.

“Certainly.  After all, it would be impossible to think of her as a boy; she’s too small.”

“I don’t know about that,” said Lady Rylton, shrugging her shoulders.  “She’s much more a boy than a girl, where her manners are concerned.”

“Poor little hoyden!  That’s what you call her, isn’t it—­a hoyden?”

“Did Marian tell you that?”

“Marian?  Certainly not!” says Sir Maurice, telling his lie beautifully.  “Marian thinks her beneath notion.  So would you, if——­” He pauses.  “If she hadn’t a penny you wouldn’t know her,” he says presently; “and you admit she has no manners, yet you ask me to marry her.  Now, if I did marry her, what should I do with her?”

“Educate her!  Control her!  Says his mother, a little viciously.