“Good God!” exclaimed Lord Valleys.

Lady Valleys made a rapid movement.  In the face of what she felt to be a really serious crisis between these two utterly different creatures of the other sex, her husband and her son, she had dropped her mask and become a genuine woman.  Unconsciously both men felt this change, and in speaking, turned towards her.

“I can’t argue it,” said Miltoun; “I consider myself bound in honour.”

“And then?” she asked.

Lord Valleys, with a note of real feeling, interjected: 

“By Heaven!  I did think you put your country above your private affairs.”

“Geoff!” said Lady Valleys.

But Lord Valleys went on: 

“No, Eustace, I’m out of touch with your view of things altogether.  I don’t even begin to understand it.”

“That is true,” said Miltoun.

“Listen to me, both of you!” said Lady Valleys:  “You two are altogether different; and you must not quarrel.  I won’t have that.  Now, Eustace, you are our son, and you have got to be kind and considerate.  Sit down, and let’s talk it over.”

And motioning her husband to a chair, she sat down in the embrasure of a window.  Miltoun remained standing.  Visited by a sudden dread, Lady Valleys said: 

“Is it—­you’ve not—­there isn’t going to be a scandal?”

Miltoun smiled grimly.

“I shall tell this man, of course, but you may make your minds easy, I imagine; I understand that his view of marriage does not permit of divorce in any case whatever.”

Lady Valleys sighed with an utter and undisguised relief.

“Well, then, my dear boy,” she began, “even if you do feel you must tell him, there is surely no reason why it should not otherwise be kept secret.”

Lord Valleys interrupted her: 

“I should be glad if you would point out the connection between your honour and the resignation of your seat,” he said stiffly.

Miltoun shook his head.

“If you don’t see already, it would be useless.”

“I do not see.  The whole matter is—­is unfortunate, but to give up your work, so long as there is no absolute necessity, seems to me far-fetched and absurd.  How many men are, there into whose lives there has not entered some such relation at one time or another?  This idea would disqualify half the nation.”  His eyes seemed in that crisis both to consult and to avoid his wife’s, as though he were at once asking her endorsement of his point of view, and observing the proprieties.  And for a moment in the midst of her anxiety, her sense of humour got the better of Lady Valleys.  It was so funny that Geoff should have to give himself away; she could not for the life of her help fixing him with her eyes.

“My dear,” she murmured, “you underestimate three-quarters, at the very least!”

But Lord Valleys, confronted with danger, was growing steadier.