This dream got no further than a private rehearsal.  When he called at Mr. Mavick’s office he learned that Mr. Mavick had gone to the Pacific coast, and that he would probably be absent several weeks.  But Philip could not wait.  He resolved to end his torture by a bold stroke.  He wrote to Mrs. Mavick, saying that he had called at Mr. Mavick’s office, and, not finding him at home, he begged that she would give him an interview concerning a matter of the deepest personal interest to himself.

Mrs. Mavick understood in an instant what this meant.  She had feared it.  Her first impulse was to write him a curt note of a character that would end at once all intercourse.  On second thought she determined to see him, to discover how far the affair had gone, and to have it out with him once for all.  She accordingly wrote that she would have a few minutes at half past five the next day.

As Philip went up the steps of the Mavick house at the appointed hour, he met coming out of the door—­and it seemed a bad omen—­Lord Montague, who seemed in high spirits, stared at Philip without recognition, whistled for his cab, and drove away.

Mrs. Mavick received him politely, and, without offering her hand, asked him to be seated.  Philip was horribly embarrassed.  The woman was so cool, so civil, so perfectly indifferent.  He stammered out something about the weather and the coming spring, and made an allusion to the dinner at Mrs. Van Cortlandt’s.  Mrs. Mavick was not in the mood to help him with any general conversation, and presently said, looking at her watch: 

“You wrote me that you wanted to consult me.  Is there anything I can do for you?”

“It was a personal matter,” said Philip, getting control of himself.

“So you wrote.  Mr. Mavick is away, and if it is in regard to anything in your office, any promotion, you know, I don’t understand anything about business.”  And Mrs. Mavick smiled graciously.

“No, it is not about the office.  I should not think of troubling my friends in that way.  It is just that—­”

“Oh, I see,” Mrs. Mavick interrupted, with good-humor, “it’s about the novel.  I hear that it has sold very well.  And you are not certain whether its success will warrant your giving up your clerkship.  Now as for me,” and she leaned back in her chair, with the air of weighing the chances in her mind, “it doesn’t seem to me that a writer—­”

“No, it is not that,” said Philip, leaning forward and looking her full in the face with all the courage he could summon, “it is your daughter.”

“What!” cried Mrs. Mavick, in a tone of incredulous surprise.

“I was afraid you would think me very presumptuous.”

“Presumptuous!  Why, she is a child.  Do you know what you are talking about?”

“My mother married at eighteen,” said Philip, gently.

“That is an interesting piece of information, but I don’t see its bearing.  Will you tell me, Mr. Burnett, what nonsense you have got into your head?”