"We will not discuss it, if you please," she said, with an attempt at dignity. "I should have thought that you and Letty might have known I should not have broken in on your honeymoon without most pressing reasons. George!"—her voice trembled, she put her lace handkerchief to her eyes—"I am an unfortunate and miserable woman, and if you—my own darling son—don't come to my rescue, I—I don't know what I may be driven to do!"
George took the remark calmly, having probably heard it before. He went on walking up and down.
"It's no good, mother, dealing in generalities, I am afraid. You promised me this morning to come to business. If you will kindly tell me at once what is the matter, and what is the figure, I shall be obliged to you."
Lady Tressady hesitated, the lace on her breast fluttering. Then, in desperation, she confessed herself first reluctantly, then in a torrent.
During the last two years, then, she said, she had been trying her luck for the first time in—well, in speculation!
"Speculation!" said George, looking at her in amazement. "In what?"
Lady Tressady tried again to preserve her dignity. She had been investing, she said—trying to increase her income on the Stock Exchange. She had done it quite as much for George's sake as her own, that she might improve her position a little, and be less of a burden upon him. Everybody did it! Several of her best women-friends were as clever at it as any man, and often doubled their allowances for the year. She, of course, had done it under the best advice. George knew that she had friends in the City who would do anything—positively anything—for her. But somehow—
Then her tone dropped. Her foot in its French shoe began to fidget on the stool before her.
Somehow, she had got into the hands of a reptile—there! No other word described the creature in the least—a sort of financial agent, who had treated her unspeakably, disgracefully. She had trusted him implicitly, and the result was that she now owed the reptile who, on the strength of her name, her son, and her aristocratic connections, had advanced her money for these adventures, a sum—
"Well, the truth is I am afraid to say what it is," said Lady Tressady, allowing herself for once a cry of nature, and again raising a shaky hand to her eyes.