“You wouldn’t have me murder my mother, would you?” he demanded irritably, kicking at the twisted root of a willow.

“Good-bye, Mr. Jonathan,” she responded quietly, and started toward the house.

“Wait a minute,—­oh, Blossom, come back!” he entreated—­but without pausing she ran quickly up the crooked path under the netting of shadows.

“So that’s the end,” said Gay angrily.  “By Jove, I’m well out of it,” and went home to dinner.  “I won’t see her again,” he thought as he entered the house, and the next instant, when he ascended the staircase, “I never saw such a mouth in my life.  It looks as if it would melt if you kissed it—–­”

The dinner, which was pompously served by Abednego and a younger butler, seemed to him tasteless and stale, and he complained querulously of a bit of cork he found in his wine glass.  His mother, supported by cushions in her chair at the head of the table, to which he had brought her in his arms, lamented his lack of appetite, and inquired tenderly if he were suffering?  For the first time in his life he discovered that he was extinguishing, with difficulty, a smouldering resentment against her.  Kesiah’s ugliness became a positive affront to him, and he felt as bitterly toward her as though she had purposely designed her appearance in order to annoy him.  The wine she drank showed immediately in her face, and he determined to tell his mother privately that she must forbid her sister to drink anything but water.  By the dim gilt framed mirror above the mantel he discovered that his own features were flushed, also, but a red face was not, he felt, a cause of compunction to one of his sex.

“You haven’t eaten your mutton, dear,” said Mrs. Gay anxiously.  “I ordered it especially because you like it.  Are you feeling unwell?”

“I’m not hungry,” he replied, rather crossly.  “This place gets on my nerves, and will end by driving me mad.”

“I suppose you’d better go away,” she returned, plaintively wounded.  “I wouldn’t be so selfish as to want to keep you by me if you are unhappy.”

“I don’t want to leave you, mother—­but, I ought to get back to the stock market.  It’s no good idling around—­I don’t think I was cut out for a farmer.”

“Try this sherry.  Your uncle brought if from Spain, and it was buried during the war.”

He filled his glass, drained it quickly, and with an effort recovered his temper.

“Yes, I’d better go,” he repeated, and knew while he spoke that he could not leave as long as the thought of Blossom tormented him.  Swift half visions of her loveliness—­of certain delectable details of her face or figure flitted always before him.  He saw her eyes, like frosted periwinkles under their warm white lids, which appeared too heavy to open wide; the little brown mole that played up and down when she laughed; and the soft, babyish creases that encircled her throat.  Each of these memories set his heart to a quicker beating and caused a warm sensation, like the caress of a burning sun, to pass over his body.