"Let's hope it's not from Stephen!"
"Pity she doesn't make him a soldier. He'd get the V.C.——" said the boy. At this they both laughed aloud.
Mrs. Uniacke, in the drawing-room, heard the sound and hardened her heart. With trembling fingers she tore the envelope open and hastily read the contents.
She had quarrelled with Stephen on Jill's behalf ... The simple fact in her present mood was magnified into sacrifice of her own happiness for her daughter.
A lonely woman—so she judged herself, plaintively—she had severed the link that bound her to her truest friend ... Her thoughts ran on tumultuously.
Obeying a sudden powerful impulse, she sat down, then and there, and wrote an answer to the man, agreeing to an interview.
The next morning she had a wire begging her to come to lunch at the little hotel where he stayed. Defiance of her children's opinion had spurred her into a prompt acceptance and here she was, embarked on adventure, without their faintest suspicion of it.
She had advanced, as her excuse for the journey, a day's shopping at Brighton, salving her conscience with the thought of several commissions she might do. Jill, still in heavy disgrace, had breathed an inward sigh of relief, little guessing the real cause for the outing was the hated Stephen.
Now, as the heavy char-à-banc churned along the dusty road, Mrs. Uniacke's mind was bent on the approaching interview. She would not acknowledge to herself how much the man meant in her life. With resolutely blind-fold eyes she called herself his "Second Mother."
But, in truth, a new feeling had crept into their intercourse of late, a hint of sentiment veiled in respect, that held no trace of maternal love. He ruled her under the smiling mask of a fellow worker—a willing slave! And for this delicate, middle-aged lady an Indian Summer tide of love had dawned unrealized: a love that was none the less perilous for its comfortable cloak of friendship.