"Wait," said the old lady, laying one bony, yellow hand stiff with rings, dusty diamonds in dim gold settings, on Ydo's arm. "Why do you take it for granted that I have come to you to do the tearful mother, imploring the wicked adventuress to give up her son? They do those things on the stage, and I've never regarded the stage as a mirror of life. I have heard more about you than you think, mademoiselle. Horace Penfield sits in my ingle‑nook. Now, what I came to find out is what you want with Wilfred, if indeed you want him at all."
"You flatter me," said Ydo. "More, you interest me. Now, just why do you wish to know?"
"Are you going to marry him?"
"It is evidently cards on the table with us." Ydo had recovered her good spirits. "Truly, I have not decided. You see, madame, your Wilfred is a big, good‑natured fellow. He is like a faithful, loyal, devoted dog. You and I being cats need neither his assistance, advice nor sympathetic companionship. I can also say truly that his ancient name and his money are nothing to me. But he has something I want." She rested her cheek on her fan, a wistful note had crept into her voice, a shadow lay in her eyes. "Ah, madame, do you not understand that we, to whom all things come easily, are often very lonely? Life's spoiled and petted darlings, we are of necessity isolated. We live at high pressure, absorbed in our enthusiasms and interests, but there come moments of weariness when we would droop on the heart that really loves us, when we would rest in that maternal and protecting love which never criticizes, never judges or condemns, never sees the ravages of time or the waste of beauty, never puts upon us the crowning indignity of forgiveness—only loves. Loves, madame, as Wilfred loves me. 'Tis the rarest thing in all the world."
"And what would you give the poor dog in exchange for this?" Mrs. Ames' voice was dry to sarcasm. But Ydo was unmoved.
"My brains, madame, my knowledge of men, women and the world. My diplomacy, my power of attack. Wouldn't it be a fair exchange?"
Mrs. Ames clasped her stiff hands together and dropped the lorgnon on the floor. "By George!" she cried. "You're a man after my own heart. Look at me! I'm a withered, haggard old woman, fierce as a cat and ugly as sin. Why? Because all my life I've been baffled. I was born as wild a bird, my dear, as yourself; but I never knew how to get out of the cage and I was always getting into new ones. I lacked—what‑d'‑y'‑m'‑call‑it—initiative; and all this longing in me for freedom"—she clutched the dangling fringes on her breast—"and life and the choosing of my own path never had an outlet. It turned sour and curdled, and became malice and all uncharitableness.
"Well, when I began to realize that Wilfred would probably give me a companion in the cage I got sick. I could bear the cage myself, I'd learned to do that; but I didn't want another she‑bird molting around. And then when it looked as if it would be Marcia Oldham I got sicker. It drove me wild to think of that milk‑faced chit of a girl, with a fool of a mother that I've always despised! I tell you what you do, Miss Gipsy Fortune‑teller!" She rapped the arm of Ydo's chair emphatically. "Marry Wilfred! Sure if you do," peering at her suspiciously, "that you won't elope with some one else?"
"I may," said Ydo coolly. "Only I have had the experience twice before, and it doesn't amuse me." Again, for the life of him, Hayden could not decide whether this were the embroidery of fiction or the truth. "The first man used scent on his handkerchief, and the second ate garlic with his fingers. I couldn't endure either of them for a week."
"You rake!" chuckled Wilfred's mother, clapping the Mariposa on the shoulder. "Marry Wilfred, do now! Make him president, at any rate a foreign ambassador." She rose. "You've given me fresh hope. I feel twenty years younger. Well, Mr. Heywood—Harden—whatever your name is, we've treated you as if you were a piece of furniture."