“Oh, no!” she would say to herself, watching him, “you can’t do that, George!  You can’t change about like a weathercock, and expect me to change, too, and forget everything that went before!  You’ve chosen to dig the gulf between us—­I’m not like Mamma, I’m not a child—­my dignity and my rights can’t be ignored in this fashion!”

No, the matter involved more than Mamma now.  George should be punished; he should have his scare.  Things must be all cleared up, explained, made right between them.  A few weeks of absence, a little realization of what he had done would start their marriage off again on a new footing.

She kissed her mother affectionately at the door, gave the new relative a cordial clasp with both hands.

“We’ll let you know in a week or two where we are,” said Mamma, all girlish confusion and happiness.  “You have my suit-case, Rich’?  That’s right, dea’.  Good-by, you nice things!”

“Good-by, darling!” Mary said.  She walked back into the empty library, seated herself in a great chair, and waited for George.

The front door slammed.  George reappeared, chuckling, and rubbing his hands together.  He walked over to a window, held back the heavy curtain, and watched the departing carriage out of sight.

“There they go!” he said.  “Carter and your mother—­married, by Jove!  Well, Mary, this is about the best day’s work for me that’s come along for some time.  Carter was speaking in the carriage only an hour ago about the possibility of our handling the New Nassau Bridge contract together.  I don’t know why not.”  George mused a moment, smilingly.

“I thought you had an utter contempt for him as a business man,” Mary said stingingly—­involuntarily, too, for she had not meant to be diverted from her original plan of a mere dignified farewell.

“Never for him,” George said promptly.  “I don’t like some of his people.  Burns, his chief construction engineer, for instance.  But I’ve the greatest respect for him!  And your mother!” said George, laughing again.  “And how pretty she looked, too!  Well, sir, they walked in on me this afternoon.  I never was so surprised in my life!  You know, Mary,” said George, taking his own big leather chair, stretching his legs out luxuriously, and eying the tip of a cigar critically, “you know that your mother is an extremely fascinating woman!  You’ll see now how she’ll blossom out, with a home of her own again—­he’s got a big house over on the Avenue somewhere, beside the Bar Kock place—­and he runs three or four cars.  Just what your mother loves!”

Mary continued to regard her husband steadily, silently.  One look at the fixed expression of contempt on her face would have enlightened him, but George was lighting his cigar now, and did not glance at her.