’It strikes me you will get enough of it if you should be successful where we wish you to be successful,’ said his mother, with a keen glance across the table.  ’Gladys Graham is a very self-willed piece of humanity.  Your Aunt Isabel told me only yesterday of her absurd fad to have common girls visiting her at Bourhill.  It is quite time somebody took her firmly in hand, or she will become that insufferable kind of person, a woman with a mission to set the world right.’

George emptied his coffee-cup, and returned his mother’s look with one equally steady and keen.

’There is no use going on at me, mother.  I’ve done all I can do in the meantime.  I asked her, and she’—­

‘Did not refuse you, I hope?’ exclaimed Mrs. Fordyce, with a gasp.

’Well, not quite; she said I must leave her alone for a long time, and I mean to.  It isn’t pleasant for a fellow to be sat on by a girl—­especially,’ he added, with a significant shrug, ’when he isn’t used to it.’

’I wish you would tell me when all this happened.  You have been very close about it, George,’ his mother said reproachfully.

’I wish I had remained close; but now that I’ve let the cat out, I may as well tell the whole tale.  It was only a fortnight ago—­that Saturday afternoon I was down at Bourhill.  I had no intention of committing myself when I went, but somehow I got carried away, and asked her.  I believe I should have had a more favourable answer, but a confounded maid came in with tea—­as they always do when nobody wants them.’

‘And what did she say?’ queried Mrs. Fordyce, in breathless interest.

‘Faith, I can’t remember exactly,’ George replied, and his mother was more than astonished to see his cheek flushing.  ’I know she asked me to wait, and not to bother her.  I believe she’ll have me in the end.  Anyhow, I mean to have her, and it’s the same thing, isn’t it?’

’I hope it may be; but if you take my advice, my dear, don’t leave her alone too much, in case somebody else more enterprising and not so easily repulsed should step in before you.  If I were a man I wouldn’t walk off for a girl’s first No.’

‘You don’t know a blessed thing about what you’re talking of, mother,’ replied George, with calm candour.  ’If you were a man, and had a girl looking at you with a steady stare, and telling you to get out, well, I guess you’d get out pretty quick, that’s all.’

Mrs. Fordyce laughed.

’Well, perhaps so; but it is very important that you should follow up your advantage, however slight it may be.  It would be a most desirable alliance.  Think of her family; it would be a splendid connection.  You would be a county gentleman, to begin with.’

‘And call myself Fordyce Graham?  Eh, mother?’ said George lazily.  ’There are worse sounding names.  But Gladys herself affects to have no pride in her long descent; that very day she was quoting to me that rot of Burns about rank being only the guinea stamp, and all that sort of thing.  All very well for a fellow like Burns, who was only a ploughman.  It has done Gladys a lot of harm living in the slums; it won’t be easy eradicating her queer notions, I can tell you.’