A lady and her husband

by Amber Reeves Blanco White

Trent leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling to avoid the compelling affection of his father's eye. He rejected an impulse to refuse indignantly, and considered the matter as thoroughly as he could. Consideration did not make James's plan seem more attractive. It was undignified, it was beastly—Trent had never written such a letter in his life, and he could not imagine himself writing it. A letter is a thing that one can keep—he thought of Mary reading his entreaties over again afterwards, when the urgency of the affair had died away—perhaps showing them to Lady Hester—"This, my dear, was what brought me back!" Trent, in defence of his own dignity, was capable of a certain amount of imagination; moreover, in the depths of his heart he felt that emotional pressure of this sort was unfair. Before dinner he had been prepared, so he thought, to use any possible means of bringing Mary back. Now that he was asked to dirty his own fingers he felt a little sorry for his mother. James was talking very calmly now and in a very kind and reasonable way, but Trent had worked with his father for some years, and he would not have cared, himself, to face such a home-coming. After all, Mary had gone away because she thought she was acting right, and James had not given any clear account of what it was that he had done to make her go.

Meanwhile James stared at his son. "Damn the boy!" he thought, "I wonder what it is that makes me always rub him up the wrong way. Well—" he said, as Trent did not seem inclined to speak.

Trent sat up and looked at him. "Do you know, sir," was the most tactful way he could put his objection, "I doubt whether my writing would be very much good? My mother has gone away, as far as I can see, because she wants to think business matters over—she must have considered the effect it would have on my plans before she went. To bring her back we must persuade her that what she is doing isn't right."

"She can hardly imagine that it is right to ruin your prospects." James's tone was becoming less smooth.

"I think," his son went on, "that we ought to write a letter, either from you or from both of us, as you prefer, to say that for her own sake as well as for ours we must ask her to come back, but if she comes we will guarantee her reasonable time and opportunities for satisfying herself about the reconstruction." That seemed to Trent a very handsome offer.

To James, already in conflict with his temper, it seemed merely aggravating. "Nonsense!" he said, "you don't realise, my dear fellow, that the thing is practically arranged. I can't keep eminent business men like Sir Ezra hanging about from day to day while your mother makes up her mind!"

"I had no idea that my mother took up that point of view," Trent suggested. "It seems very sudden!"

James had no answer to this. He knew perfectly well that he had run into the affair with his eyes open. He had known that Mary might very well object, and he had disregarded this knowledge. "I'm afraid she must have been reading Socialistic stuff," he conceded. "It gets hold of women." He fidgeted a little in his chair.

Trent threw himself back again. Then his father was to blame! He had seen this coming and he had taken no steps to meet it. He had not even consulted his able son. "Arranged or not, I don't see how we can get on without my mother's concurrence," he threw out. "It seems to me that we are in a thorough mess."

James glared at him. "I have suggested a plan by which I think your mother's concurrence can be obtained!"