“I won’t argue it, my dear.  And I won’t have my life ruined by your mother, as thousands of men’s lives have been ruined, by just such unscrupulous irresponsible women!”

“George,” said Mary, very white, “I won’t turn against my mother!”

“Then you turn against me,” George said in a deadly calm.

“Do you expect her to board, George, in the same city that I have my home?” Mary demanded, after a pause.

“Plenty of women do it,” George said inflexibly.

“But, George, you know Mamma!  She’d simply be here all the time; it would come to exactly the same thing.  She’d come after breakfast, and you’d have to take her home after dinner.  She’d have her clothes made here, and laundered here, and she’d do all her telephoning...”

“That is exactly what has got to stop,” said George.  “I will pay her board at some good place.  But I’ll pay it... she won’t touch the money.  Besides that, she can have an allowance.  But she must understand that she is not to come here except when she is especially invited, at certain intervals.”

“George, dear, that is absolutely absurd!”

“Very well,” George said, flushing, “but if she is here to-night, I will not come home.  I’ll dine at the club.  When she has gone, I’ll come home again.”

Mary’s head was awhirl.  She scarcely knew where the conversation was leading then, or what the reckless things they said involved.  She was merely feeling blindly now for the arguments that should give her the advantage.

“You needn’t stay at the club, George,” she said, “for Mamma and I will go down to Beach Meadow.  When you have come to your senses, I’ll come back.  I’ll let Miss Fox go, and Mamma and I will look out for the children—­”

“I warn you,” George interrupted her coldly, “that if you take any such step, you will have a long time to think it over before you hear from me!  I warn you that it has taken much less than this to ruin the happiness of many a man and woman!”

Mary faced him, breathing hard.  This was their first real quarrel.  Brief times of impatience, unsympathy, differences of opinion there had been, but this—­this Mary felt even now—­was gravely different.  With a feeling curiously alien and cold, almost hostile, she eyed the face opposite her own; the strange face that had been so familiar and dear only at breakfast time.

“I will go,” she said quietly.  “I think it will do us both good.”

“Nonsense!” George said.  “I won’t permit it.”

“What will you do, make a public affair of it?”

“No, you know I won’t do that.  But don’t talk like a child, Mary.  Remember, I mean what I say about your mother, and tell her so when she arrives.”

After that, he went away.  A long time passed, while Mary sat very still in the big leather chair at the head of the table.  The sunlight shifted, fell lower,—­shone ruby red through a decanter of claret on the sideboard.  The house was very still.