"Don't go on like that—don't!" says Rylton, coming over to her and patting her shoulder tenderly. "There must be some other way out of it. I know we are in a hole more or less, but——"
"How lightly you speak of it! Who is to pay your debts? You know how your gambling on the turf has ruined us—brought us to the very verge of disgrace and penury, and now, when you _can _help to set the old name straight again, you refuse—refuse!" She stops as if choking.
"I don't think my gambling debts are the actual cause of our worries," says her son, rather coldly. "If I have wasted a few hundred on a race here and there, it is all I have done. When the property came into my hands it was dipped very deeply."
"You would accuse your father——" begins she hotly.
Rylton pauses. "No; not my father," says he distinctly, if gently.
"You mean, then, that you accuse me!" cries she, flashing round at him.
All at once her singularly youthful face grows as old as it ought to be—a vindictive curve round the mouth makes that usually charming feature almost repulsive.
"My dear mother, let us avoid a scene," says her son sternly. "To tell you the truth, I have had too many of them of late."
Something in his manner warns her to go no farther in the late direction. If she is to win the cause so close to her heart, she had better refrain from recrimination—from an accusation of any sort.
"Dearest Maurice," says she, going to him and taking his hand in hers, "you know it is for your sake only I press this dreadful matter. She is so rich, and you—we—are so poor! She has a house in Surrey, and one in the North—delightful places, I have been told—and, of course, she would like you to keep up your own house in town. As for me, all I ask is this old house—bare and uncomfortable as it is."