“What makes you say I couldn’t have made her happy?” he pressed her, his eyes fixed on her face which was bent above her wandering pen. “How do you know?”

“I wasn’t—very happy,” said his mother just above a whisper, watching the busy point of her pen. “And Hilary’s exactly like his father.”

That jerked George out into the open.

“Oh, here, I say—! I always thought you and the guvnor hit it off together fairly well—” he exclaimed, shocked.

His mother bit her lip, and drew a row of little circles on the paper and then went along the line putting dots in the center of each one, tidily. George was staring at her, the ice-tongs in his hand.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” she murmured at last, very low. “I was only trying to help you, George.”

“But of course, mum—say anything you like! Only—” George put down the ice-tongs, poured out half a glass of the White Lady, and drank it up.

“It’s me you’re trying to help,” Hilary told her a bit grimly. “You remember me, don’t you, mother—I’m the younger one.”

“—only it was a bit of a shock!” said George, setting down the glass.

“Yes, I suppose it was,” she admitted, connecting the row of circles with little rows of dots. “Of course we never—never quarreled, you know. And he never—never threw things at me!” The corners of her mouth deepened in her still girlish smile. “But—” She became absorbed in the minute gyrations of her pen.

“But what?” insisted Hilary, standing quite close to the desk now. “You’ve got to clear this up. Why wouldn’t I have made a good husband? What’s wrong with me— and with my father?”

“I certainly don’t remember any rows,” said George, without humor.

“Oh, no. There weren’t any rows.” She shook her head sadly. “Maybe if I’d kicked up a fuss sometimes—” Her voice drifted away. She never once looked towards her astonished elder son in the middle of the room.

“What was wrong with him?” asked George. “Those trips he made—was it other women?”

“Oh, goodness, no!” She laughed at him, but secretively, and would not meet his eyes. “I never had to worry about that!” she told her pen-point happily. “I didn’t mean Hilary won’t be faithful to her!”

“Oh,” said George, frankly puzzled.

“Thank you,” said Hilary punctiliously. “Just what did you mean, if you don’t mind?”

She gave a guilty sort of glance over her shoulder, as though to make sure that only George was in the room, and her voice dropped still lower.