“Of course!  I should have invented one for you—­

“I can do that for myself,” said Innocent, quietly—­“and so you are relieved from all trouble on my score.  May I ask you to go now?”

Lady Blythe stared at her.

“Are you insolent, or only stupid?” she asked—­“Do you realise what it is that I have told you—­that I, Lady Blythe, wife of a peer, and moving in the highest ranks of society, am willing to take charge of you, feed you, clothe you, bring you out and marry you well?  Do you understand, and still refuse?”

“I understand—­and I still refuse,” replied Innocent—­“I would accept, if you owned me as your daughter to your husband and to all the world—­but as your ‘adopted’ child—­as a lie under your roof—­I refuse absolutely and entirely!  Are you astonished that I should wish to live truly instead of falsely?”

Lady Blythe gathered her priceless lace scarf round her elegant shoulders.

“I begin to think it must have been all a bad dream!” she said, and laughed softly—­“My little affair with your father cannot have really happened, and you cannot really be my child!  I must consider it in that light!  I feel I have done my part in the matter by coming here to see you and talk to you and make what I consider a very kind and reasonable proposition—­you have refused it—­and there is no more to be said.”  She settled her dainty hat more piquantly on her rich dark hair, and smiled agreeably.  “Will you show me the way out?  I left my motor-car on the high-road—­my chauffeur did not care to bring it down your rather muddy back lane.”

Innocent said nothing—­but merely opened the door and stood aside for her visitor to pass.  A curious tightening at her heart oppressed her as she thought that this elegant, self-possessed, exquisitely attired creature was actually her “mother!”—­and she could have cried out with the pain which was so hard to bear.  Suddenly Lady Blythe came to an abrupt standstill.

“You will not kiss me?” she said—­“Not even for your father’s sake?”

With a quick sobbing catch in her breath, the girl looked up—­her “mother” was a full head taller than she.  She lifted her fair head—­her eyes were full of tears.  Her lips quivered—­Lady Blythe stooped and kissed them lightly.

“There!—­be a good girl!” she said.  “You have the most extraordinary high-flown notions, and I think they will lead you into trouble!  However, I’ll give you one more chance—­if at the end of this year you would like to come to me, my offer to you still holds good.  After that—­well!—­as you yourself said, you will have no mother!”

“I have never had one!” answered Innocent, in low choked accents—­ “And—­I shall never have one!”

Lady Blythe smiled—­a cold, amused smile, and passed out through the hall into the garden.

“What delightful flowers!” she exclaimed, in a sweet, singing voice, for the benefit of anyone who might be listening—­“A perfect paradise!  No wonder Briar Farm is so famous!  It’s perfectly charming!  Is this the way?  Thanks ever so much!” This, as Innocent opened the gate—­“Let me see!—­I go up the old by-road?—­yes?—­and the main road joins it at the summit?—­No, pray don’t trouble to come with me—­I can find my car quite easily!  Good-bye!”