"How your mother adores you!" she began at the next interval. "She'd die for you, I think. She says you're the best son in the world, and have never given her any trouble."
Godfrey's conscience suffered a twinge—no less for his mother than for himself.
"I'm afraid mothers don't know all about their sons, always."
"No, I suppose not. But there are some people you know you can trust."
"Come, I say, you're making me out too perfect by half!"
She laughed. "Oh, I don't accuse you of being a milksop. I don't like milksops, Mr. Godfrey."
So she went on, innocently showing her interest and her preference, and in the process making Godfrey feel that his family and himself were accomplices in a great and heinous conspiracy. But there was still time to get out of it, to put an end to it. There were two ways out of it, just two and no more, thought Godfrey. Either she must be told, or there must cease to be anything to tell her.
But the sternest moralist would hardly demand that momentous decisions and heart-rending avowals should be made on Christmas Day. That surely is a close time? So thought Godfrey Ledstone, and, the religious observances of the day having been honoured by all the family, the rest of it passed merrily in Woburn Square. The Thurseleys, mother and daughter, came to spend the afternoon, and came again to dinner.
"So good of you to take pity on us," said Mrs. Thurseley, a soft-voiced pleasant woman, who was placid and restful, and said the right thing. She would make an excellent mother-in-law—for some man.
Like the old-fashioned folk they were, they had a snapdragon and plenty of mistletoe and plenty of the usual jokes about both. As there was nobody else on whom the jokes could plausibly be fastened (Mr. Ledstone's reminiscences of his own courting tended towards the sentimental, while the subject was, of course, too tender in widowed Mrs. Thurseley's case), they were naturally pointed at Mabel and Godfrey. Mabel laughed and blushed. Really Godfrey had to play his part; he could not look a fool, who did not know how to flirt. He ended by flirting pretty hard. He had his reward in the beams of the whole circle—except Amy. She seemed rather out of humour that Christmas; she pleaded a headache for excuse. When Mrs. Ledstone said good-night to her son, she embraced him with agitated affection, and whispered: "I feel happier than I've done for a long while, Godfrey darling."