‘I must know more of this, sir, before you leave the house,’ said Lady Demolines.  He saw that between them both there might probably be a very bad quarter of an hour in store for him; but he swore to himself that no union of dragon and tigress should extract from him a word that could be taken as a promise of marriage.

The old woman was now kneeling by the head of the sofa, and Johnny was standing close by her side.  Suddenly Madalina opened her eyes—­opened them very wide, and gazed around her.  Then slowly she raised herself on the sofa, and turned her face first upon her mother and then upon Johnny.  ‘You here, mamma!’ she said.

‘Dearest one, I am near you.  Be not afraid,’ said her ladyship.

’Afraid!  Why should I be afraid?  John!  My own John!  Mamma, he is my own.’  And she put out her arms to him, as though calling to him to come to her.  Things were now very bad with John Eames—­so bad that he would have given a very considerable lump out of Lord De Guest’s legacy to be able to escape at once into the street.  The power of a woman, when she chooses to use it recklessly, is, for the moment, almost unbounded.

‘I hope you find yourself a little better,’ said John, struggling to speak, as though he were not utterly crushed by the occasion.

Lady Demolines slowly raised herself from her knees, helping herself with her hands against the shoulder of the sofa—­for though still very clever, she was old and stiff—­and then offered both her hands to Johnny.  Johnny cautiously took one of them, finding himself unable to decline them both.  ‘My son!’ she exclaimed; and before he knew where he was the old woman had succeeded in kissing his nose and whiskers.  ’My son!’ she said again.

Now that the time had come for facing the dragon and the tigress in their wrath.  If they were to be faced at all, the time for facing them had certainly arrived.  ‘I don’t quite understand,’ he said, almost in a whisper.  Madalina put out one arm towards him, and the fingers trembled.  Her lips were opened, and the white row of interior ivory might be seen plainly; but at the present conjuncture of affairs she spoke not a word.  She spoke not a word; but her arm remained stretched towards him, and her fingers did not cease to tremble.

‘You do not understand!’ said Lady Demolines, drawing herself back and looking, in her short open cloak, like a knight who has donned his cuirass, but has forgotten to put on his leg-gear.  And she shook the bright ribbons of her cap, as a knight in his wrath shakes the crest of his helmet.  ’You do not understand, Mr Eames!  What is it, sir, that you do not understand?’

‘There is some misconception, I mean,’ said Johnny.

‘Mother!’ said Madalina, turning her eyes from her recent lover to her tender parent; trembling all over, but still keeping her hand extended.  ‘Mother!’

‘My darling!  But leave him to me, dearest.  Compose yourself.’