It was a curious thing in her state of mind, and with the feelings she had towards her husband's family, that one of the first things she did on establishing herself in her Ebury Street rooms, was to look for an old "Peerage" which had lain for several years she remembered on a certain shelf. Genteel lodgings in Ebury Street which did not possess somewhere an old "Peerage" would be out of the world indeed. She found it in the same corner as of old, where she had noted it so often and avoided it as if it had been a serpent; but now the first thing she did, as soon as her tray was brought her, and all necessary explanations given, and the door shut, was to take the book furtively from its place, almost as if she were afraid of what she should see. What a list there was of sons of Lord St. Serf! some she had never known, who died young: and Reginald in India, and Hal, who was so kind—what a good laugh he had, she remembered, not a joyless cackle like Mariamne's, a good natural laugh, and a kind light in his eyes: and he had been kind. She could remember ever so many things, nothings, things that made a little difference in the dull, dull cloudy sky of a neglected wife. Poor Hal! and he too was gone, and St. Serf dying, and—— Pippo the heir!—Pippo was perhaps, for any thing she knew, Lord Lomond now.

To say that this did not startle Elinor, did not make her heart beat, did not open new complications and vistas in life, would be a thing impossible. Pippo Lord Lomond! Pippo, whom she had feared to expose to his father's influence, whom she had kept apart, who did not know anything about himself except that he was her son—had she kept and guarded the boy thus in the very obscurity of life, in the stillest and most protected circumstances, only to plunge him suddenly at last, without preparation, without warning, into the fiery furnace of temptation, into a region where he might pardonably (perhaps) put himself beyond her influence, beyond her guidance? Poor Elinor! and yet she was not wholly to be pitied either. For her heart was fired by the thought of her boy's elevation in spite of herself. It did not occur to her that such an elevation for him meant something also for her. That view of the case she did not take into consideration for a moment. Nay, she did not think of it. But that Pippo should be Lord Lomond went through her like an arrow—like an arrow that gave a wound, acute and sharp, yet no pain, if such a thing could be said. That he should discover his father had been the danger before her all his life, but if he must find out that he had a father that was a way in which it might not be all pain. I do not pretend that she was very clear in all these thoughts. Indeed, she was not clear at all. John Tatham, knowing but one side, had begun to think vaguely of Elinor what Elinor thought of her mother, that her mind was not quite as of old, not so bright nor so vivid, not so clear in coming to a conclusion; had he known everything he might not have been so sure even on that point. But then had he known everything that Elinor knew, and been aware of what it was which Elinor had been summoned by all the force of old fidelity and the honour of her name to do, John would have been too much horrified to have been able to form an opinion. No, poor Elinor was not at all clear in her thoughts—less clear than ever after these revelations—the way before her seemed dark in whatever way she looked at it, complications were round her on every side. She had instinctively, without a word said, given up that idea of flight. Who was it that said the heir to a peerage could not be hid? John had said it, she remembered, and John was always right. If she was to take him away to the uttermost end of the earth, they would seek him out and find him. And then there was—his father, who had known all the time, had known and never disturbed her——No wonder that poor Elinor's thoughts were mixed and complicated. She walked up and down the room, not thinking, but letting crowds and flights of thoughts like birds fly through her mind; no longer clear indeed as she had been wont to be, no longer coming to sudden, sharp conclusions, admitting possibilities of which Elinor once upon a time would never have thought.

And day by day as he saw her, John Tatham understood her less and less. He did not know what she meant, what she was going to do, what were her sentiments towards her husband, what were her intentions towards her son. He had found out a great deal about the case, merely as a case, and it began to be clear to him where Elinor's part came in. Elinor Compton could not have appeared on her husband's behalf, and whether there might not arise a question whether, being now his wife, her evidence could be taken on what had happened before she was his wife, was by no means sure—"Why didn't they call your mother?" John said, as Mrs. Dennistoun also had said—but he did not at all understand, how could he? the dismay that came over Elinor, and the "Not for the world," which came from her lips. He had come in to see her in the morning as he went down to his chambers, on the very morning when Pippo, quite unexpected and also not at all desired, was arriving at Euston Square.

"It would have been much better," he said, "in every way if they had called your mother—who of course must know exactly what you know, Elinor, in respect to this matter——"

"No," said Elinor with dry lips. "She knows nothing. She—calculates back by little incidents—she does not remember: I—do——"

"That's natural, I suppose," said John, with an impatient sigh and a half-angry look. "Still—my aunt——"

"Would do no good at all: you may believe me, John. Don't let us speak of this any more. I know what has to be done: my mother would twist herself up among her calculations—about Alick Hudson's examination and I know not what. Whereas I—there is nothing, nothing more to be said. I thought I could escape, and it is your doing if I now see that I cannot escape. I can but hope that Providence will protect my boy. He is at school, where they have little time for reading the papers. He may never even see—or at least if he does he may think it is another Compton—some one whom he never heard of——"

"And how if he becomes Lord Lomond, as I said, before the secret is out?"

"Oh, John," cried Elinor, wringing her hands—"don't, don't torment me with that idea now—let only this be past and then: Oh, I see, I see—I am not a fool—I perceive that I cannot hide him as you say if that happens. But oh, John, for pity's sake let this be over first! Let us not hurry everything on at the same time. He is at school. What do schoolboys care for the newspapers, especially for trials in the law courts? Oh, let this be over first! A boy at school—and he need never know——"

It was at this moment that a hansom drew up, and a rattling peal came at the door. Hansoms are not rare in Ebury Street, and how can one tell in these small houses if the peal is at one's door or the next? Elinor was not disturbed. She paid no attention. She expected no one, she was afraid of nothing new for the present. Surely, surely, as she said, there was enough for the present. It did not seem possible that any new incident should come now.

"I do not want to torment you, Elinor—you may imagine I would be the last—I would only save you if I could from what must be—— What! what? who's this?—PHILIP! the boy!"

The door had burst open with an eager, impatient hand upon it, and there stood upon the threshold, in all the mingled excitement and fatigue of his night journey, pale, sleep in his eyes, yet happy expectation, exultation, the certainty of open arms to receive him, and cries of delight—the boy. He stood for a second looking into the strange yet familiar room. John Tatham had sprung to his feet and stood startled, hesitating, while young Philip's eyes, noting him with a glance, flashed past him to the other more important, more beloved, the mother whom he had expected to rush towards him with an outcry of joy.

And Elinor sat still in her chair, struck dumb, grown pale like a ghost, her eyes wide open, her lips apart. The sight of the boy, her beloved child, her pride and delight, was as a horrible spectacle to Elinor. She stared at him like one horrified, and neither moved nor spoke.

"Elinor!" cried John, terrified, "there's nothing wrong. Don't you see it's Philip? Boy, what do you mean by giving her such a fright? She's fainting, I believe."

"I—give her a fright!" cried, half in anguish, half in indignation, the astonished boy.

"No, I'm not fainting. Pippo! there's nothing wrong—at home?" Elinor cried, holding out her hand to him—coming to herself, which meant only awakening to the horror of a danger far more present than she had ever dreamt, and to the sudden sight not of her boy, but of that Nemesis which she had so carefully prepared for herself, and which had been awaiting her for years. She was not afraid of anything wrong at home. It was the first shield she could find in the shock which had almost paralysed her, to conceal her terror and distress at the sight of him from the astonished, disappointed, mortified, and angry boy.

"I thought," he said, "you would have been glad to see me, mother! No, there's nothing wrong at home."

"Thank heaven for that!" cried Elinor, feeling herself more and more a hypocrite as she recovered from the shock. "Pippo, I was saying this moment that you were at school. The words were scarcely off my lips—and then to see you in a moment, standing there."

"I thought," he repeated again, trembling with the disappointment and mortification, wounded in his cheerful, confident affection, and in his young pride, the monarch of all he surveyed—"I thought you would have been pleased to see me, mother!"

"Of course," said John, cheerfully, "your mother is glad to see you: and so am I, you impetuous boy, though you don't take the trouble of shaking hands with me. He wants to be kissed and coddled, Elinor, and I must be off to my chambers. But I should like to know first what's up, boy? You've got something to say."

"Pippo, what is it, my dearest? You did give me a great fright, and I am still nervous a little. Tell me, Pippo; something has brought you—your uncle John is right. I can see it in your eyes. You've got something to tell me!"

The tired and excited boy looked from one to another, two faces both full of a veiled but intense anxiety, looking at him as if what they expected was no good news. He burst out into a big, hoarse laugh, the only way to keep himself from crying. "You don't even seem to remember anything about it," he cried, flinging himself down in the nearest chair; "and for my part I don't care any longer whether any one knows or not."

And Elinor, whose thoughts were on such different things—whose whole mind was absorbed in the question of what he could have heard about the trial, about his father, about the new and strange future before him—gazed at him with eyes that seemed hollowed out all round with devouring anxiety. "What is it?" she said, "what is it? For God's sake tell me! What have you heard?"

It goes against all prejudices to imagine that John Tatham, a man who never had had a child, an old bachelor not too tolerant of youth, should have divined the boy better than his mother. But he did, perhaps because he was a lawyer, and accustomed to investigate the human countenance and eye. He saw that Philip was full of something of his own, immediately interesting to himself; and he cast about quickly in his mind what it could be. Not that the boy was heir to a peerage: he would never have come like this to announce that: but something that Philip was cruelly disappointed his mother did not remember. This passed through John's mind like a flash, though it takes a long time to describe. "Ah," he said, "I begin to divine. Was not there something about a—scholarship?"

"Pippo!" cried Elinor, lighting up great lamps of relief, of sudden ease and quick coming joy, in her brightened eyes and face. "My boy! you've won your battle! You've got it, you've got it, Pippo! And your foolish, stupid mother that thought for a moment you could rush to her like this with anything but good news!"

It took a few moments to soothe Pippo down, and mend his wounded feelings. "I began to think nobody cared," he said, "and that made me that I didn't care myself. I'd rather Musgrave had got it, if it had not been to please you all. And you never seemed so much as to remember—only Uncle John!" he added after a moment, with a half scorn which made John laugh at the never-failing candour of youth.

"Only the least important of all," he said. "It was atrocious of the ladies, Philip. Shake hands, my boy, I owe you five pounds for the scholarship. And now I'll take myself off, which will please you most of all."

He went down-stairs laughing to himself all the way, but got suddenly quite grave as he stepped outside—whether because he remembered that it does not become a Q.C. and M.P. to laugh in the street, or for other causes, it does not become us to attempt to say.

And Elinor meanwhile made it up to her boy amply, and while her heart ached with the question what to do with him, how to dispose of him during those dreadful following days, behaved herself as if her head too was half turned with joy and exultation, only tempered by the regret that Musgrave, who had worked so hard, could not have got the scholarship too.



CHAPTER XLI.

Elinor made much of her boy during that day and the following days, to take away the sense of disappointment which even after the first great mortification was got over still haunted young Philip's mind. It surprised him beyond measure to find that she did not wish to go out with him, indeed in so far as was possible avoided it altogether, save for a hurried drive to a few places, during which she kept her veil down and sheltered herself with an umbrella in the most ridiculous way. "Are you afraid of your complexion, mother?" the boy asked of her with disdain. "It looks like it," she said, but with a laugh that was full of embarrassment, "though it is a little late in the day." Elinor was perhaps better aware than Pippo was that she had a complexion which a girl might have envied, and was still as fresh as a rose, notwithstanding that she was a year or two over forty; but I need not say it was not of her complexion she was thinking. She had been careful to choose her time on previous visits to London so as to risk as little as possible the chance of meeting her husband. But now there was no doubt that he was in town, and not the least that if he met her anywhere with Pippo, her secret, so far as it had ever been a secret, would be in his hands. Even when John took the boy out it was with a beating heart that his mother saw him go, for John was too well known to make any secret possible about his movements, or who it was who was with him. Perhaps it was for this reason that John desired to take him out, and even cut short his day's work on one or two occasions to act as cicerone to Philip. He took him to the House, to the great excitement and delight of the boy, who only wished that the entertainment could have been made complete by a speech from Uncle John, which was a point in which his guide, philosopher, and friend, though in every other way so complaisant, did not humour Pippo. On one occasion during the first week they had an encounter which made John's middle-aged pulses move a little quicker. When they were walking along through Hyde Park, having strolled that way in the fading of the May afternoon, when the carriages were still promenading up and down, before they returned to Halkin Street to dinner, where Elinor awaited them—it happened to Mr. Tatham to meet the roving eyes of Lady Mariamne, who lay back languidly in her carriage, wrapped in a fur cloak, and shivering in the chill of the evening. She was not particularly interested in anything or any person whom she had seen, and was a little cross and desirous of getting home. But when she saw John she roused up immediately, and gave a sign to Dolly, who sat by her, to pull the check-string. "Mr. Tatham!" she cried, in her shrill voice. Lady Mariamne was not one of the people who object to hear their voice in public or are reluctant to make their wishes known to everybody. She felt herself to be of the cast in which everybody is interested, and that the public liked to know whom she honoured with her acquaintance. "Mr. Tatham! are you going to carry your rudeness so far as not to seem to know me? Oh, come here this moment, you impertinent man!"

"Can I be of any use to you, Lady Mariamne?" said John, gravely, at the carriage door.

"Oh, dear no; you can't be of any use. What should I have those men for if I wanted you to be of use? Come and talk a moment, that's all; or get into the carriage and I'll take you anywhere. Dolly and I have driven round and round, and we have not seen a creature we cared to see. Yes! there was a darling, darling little Maltese terrier, with white silk curls hanging over his eyes, on an odious woman's lap; but I cannot expect you to find that angel for me. Mr. Tatham, who is that tall boy?"

"Pippo," said John, quickly (though probably he had never in his life before used that name, which he disapproved of angrily, as people often do of a childish name which does not please them), "go on. I'll come after you directly. The boy is a cousin of mine, Lady Mariamne, just from school."

"Mr. Tatham, I am quite sure it is Nell's boy. Call after him. What's his name? Bring him back! John Thomas, run after that young gentleman, and say with my compliments——"

"Nothing," said John, stopping the footman with a lifted hand and a still more emphatic look. "He is hastening home to—an engagement. And it's evident I had better go too—for your little friend there is showing his teeth."

"The darling!" said Lady Mariamne, "did it show its little pearls at the wicked man that will not do what its mummy says? Dolly, can't you jump down and run after that boy? I am sure it is your Uncle Philip's boy."

"He is out of sight, mother," said Miss Dolly, calmly.

"You are the most dreadful, wicked, unkind people, all of you. Show its little teeth, then, darling! Oo's the only one that has any feeling. Mr. Tatham, do tell me something about this trial. What is going to be done? Phil is mixed up in it. I know he is. Can they do anything to anybody—after all this time? They can't make you pay up, I know, after a certain time. Oh, couldn't it all be hushed up and stopped and kept out of the newspapers? I hate the newspapers, always chuckling over every new discovery. But this cannot be called a new discovery. If it's true it's old, as old as the old beginning of the world. Don't you think somebody could get at the newspaper men and have it hushed up?"

"I doubt if you could get hold of all of them, their name is legion," said John.

"Oh, I don't care what their name is. If you will help me, Mr. Tatham, we could get hold of most of them—won't you? You know, don't you, poor St. Serf is so bad; it may be over any day—and then only think what a complication! Dolly, turn your head the other way; look at that silly young Huntsfield capering about to catch your eye. I don't want you to hear what I have got to say."

"I don't in the least way want to hear what you have got to say, dear mamma," said Dolly.

"That would have made me listen to every word," said Lady Mariamne; "but girls are more queer nowadays than anything that ever was. Mr. Tatham"—she put her hand upon his, which was on the carriage door, and bent her perfumed, powdered face towards him—"for goodness' sake—think how awkward it would be—a man just succeeding to a title and that sort of thing put in all the papers about him. Do, do stop it, or try something to stop it, for goodness' sake!"

"I assure you," said John, "I can do nothing to stop it. I am as powerless as you are."

"Oh, I don't say that I am powerless," said Lady Mariamne, with her shrill laugh. "One has one's little ways of influence." Then she put her hand again upon John with a sudden grip. "Mr. Tatham," she said, "tell me, in confidence, was that Phil's boy?"

"I have told you, Lady Mariamne, it is a nephew of mine."

"A nephew—oh, I know what kind of a nephew—a la mode de Bretagne!"

She turned her head to the other side, where her daughter was gazing calmly in front of her.

"Dolly! I was sure of it," she cried, "don't you hear? Dolly, don't you hear?"

"Which, mamma?" said Dolly, gravely; "of course I could not help hearing it all. Which part was I to notice? about the newspapers or about the boy?"

Lady Mariamne appealed to earth and heaven with the loud cackle of her laugh. "He can't deny it," she said; "he as good as owns it. I am certain that's the boy that will be Lomond."

"Uncle St. Serf is not dead yet," said Dolly, reprovingly.

"Poor Serf!—but he's so very bad," said Lady Mariamne, "that it's almost the same thing. Mr. Tatham, can't we take you anywhere? I'm so glad I've seen Nell's boy. Can't we drive you home? Perhaps you've got Nell there too?"

John stood back from the carriage door, just in time to escape the start of the horses as the remorseless string was touched and the footman clambered up into his seat. Lady Mariamne's smile went off her face, and she had forgotten all about it, to judge from appearances, before he had got himself in motion again. And a little farther on, behind the next tree, he found young Philip waiting, full of curiosity and questions.

"Who was that lady, Uncle John? Was she asking about me? I thought I heard her call. I had half a mind to run back and say 'Here I am.'"

"It was much better that you didn't do anything of the kind. Never pay any attention when you think you hear a fine lady calling you, Philip. It is better not to hear the Siren's call."

"When they're elderly Sirens like that!" said the boy, with a laugh. "But I say, Uncle John, if you won't tell me who the lady is, who is the girl? She has a pair of eyes!—not like Sirens though—eyes that go through you—like—like a pair of lancets."

"A surgical operation in fact: and I shouldn't wonder if she meant to be a doctor," said John. "The mother has done nothing all her life, therefore the daughter means to do much. It is the natural reaction of the generations. But I never noticed that Miss Dolly had any eyes—to speak of," said the highly indifferent middle-aged man.

The boy flushed with a sense of indignation. "Perhaps you think the old lady's were finer?" he said.

"I never admired the old lady, as you call her," said John, shortly; and then he turned Philip's attention to something, possibly with the easily satisfied conviction of a spectator that the boy thought of it no more.

"We met my Lady Mariamne in the park," he said to Elinor when they sat at dinner an hour later at that bachelor table in Halkin Street, where everything was so exquisitely cared for. It was like Elinor, but most unlike the place in which she found herself, that she started so violently as to shake the whole table, crying out in a tone of consternation, "John!" as if he did not know very well what he might venture to say, or as if he had any intention of betraying her to her son.

"She was very anxious," he said, perhaps playing a little with her excitement, "to have Philip presented to her: but I sent him on—that is to say, I thought I sent him on. The fellow went no farther than to the next tree, where he stood and watched Miss Dolly, not feeling any interest in the old lady, as he said."

"Well, Uncle John—did you expect me to look at the old lady? You are not so fond of old ladies yourself."

"And who is Miss Dolly?" said Elinor, trying to conceal the beating of her heart and the quiver on her lips with a smile; and then she added, with a little catch of her breath, "Oh, yes, I remember there was a little girl."

"You will be surprised to hear that we are by way of being great friends. Her ladyship visits me in my chambers——"

Again Elinor uttered that startled cry, "John!" but she tried this time to cover it with a tremulous laugh. "Are you becoming a flirt in your old age?"

"It appears so," said John. And then he added, "That aphorism, which struck you as it struck me, Elinor, by its good sense—about the heir to a peerage—is really her production, and not mine."

"Miss Dolly's? And what was the aphorism, Uncle John?" cried Philip.

"No, it was not Miss Dolly's, my young man. It was the mother's, and so of course does not interest you any more."

It did not as a matter of fact: the old lady was supremely indifferent to Pippo; but as he looked up saying something else which did not bear upon the subject, it occurred to the boy, as it will sometimes occur by the merest chance to a young observer, to notice his mother. She caught his eye somehow in the most accidental way; and Pippo was too well acquainted with her looks not to perceive that there was a thrill in every line of her countenance, a slight nervous tremble in her hands and entire person, such as was in no way to be accounted for (he thought) by anything that had been said or done. There was nothing surely to disquiet her in dining at Uncle John's, the three alone, not even one other guest to fill up the vacant side of the table. Philip had himself thought that Uncle John might have asked some one to meet them. He should have remembered that he himself, Philip, was now of an age to dine out, and see a little society, and go into the world. But what in the name of all that was wonderful was there in this entertainment to agitate his mother? And John Tatham had a look—which Philip did not understand—the look of a man who was successful in argument, who was almost crushing an opponent. It was as if a duel had been going on between them, and the man was the victor, which, as was natural, immediately threw Philip violently on the other side.

"You're not well, mother," he said.

"Do you think not, Pippo? Well, perhaps you are right. London is too much for me. I am a country bird," said Elinor, with smiling yet trembling lips.

"You shall not go to the theatre if you are not up to it," said the boy in his imperious way.

She gave him an affectionate look, and then she looked across the table at John. What did that look mean? There was a faint smile in it: and there was a great deal which Philip did not understand, things understood by Uncle John—who was after all what you might call an outsider, no more—and not by him, her son! Could anything be so monstrous? Philip blazed up with sudden fire.

"No," said John Tatham; "I think Philip's right. We'll take her home to be coddled by her maid, and we'll go off, two wild young fellows, to the play by ourselves."

"No," said Philip, "I'll leave her to be coddled by no maid. I can take care of my mother myself."

"My dear boy," said Elinor, "I want no coddling. But I doubt whether I could stand the play. I like you to go with Uncle John."

And then it began to dawn upon Philip that his mother had never meant to be of the party, and that this was what had been settled all along. He was more angry; more wounded and hurt in his spirit than he had of course the least occasion to be. He was of opinion that his mother had never had any secrets from him, that she had taken him into her confidence since he was a small boy, even things that Granny did not know! And here all at once there was rising between them a cloud, a mist, which there was no reason for. If he had done anything to make him less worthy he would have understood; had there been a bad report from school, had he failed in his work and disappointed her, there might have been some reason for it. But he had done nothing of the kind! Never before had he been so deserving of confidence; he had got his scholarship, he had finished the first phase of his education in triumph, and fulfilled all her expectations. And now just at this point of all others, just when he was most fit to understand, most worthy of trust, she turned from him. His heart swelled as if it would burst, with anger first, almost too strong to be repressed, and with that sense of injured merit which is of all things the most hard to bear. It is hard enough even when one is aware one deserves no better. But to be conscious of your worth and to feel that you are not appreciated, that is indeed too much for any one. There was not even the satisfaction of giving up the play which he had looked forward to, making a sacrifice of it to his mother, in which there would have been a severe pleasure. But she did not want him! She preferred that he should leave her by herself to be coddled by her maid, as Uncle John (vulgarly) said. Or perhaps was there somebody else coming, some old friend whom he knew nothing of, somebody, some one or other like that old witch in the carriage whom Pippo was not meant to know?

It ended, however, in the carrying out of the plan settled beforehand by those old conspirators. The old conspirators do generally manage to carry out their plans for the management of rebellious youth, however injured the latter may feel. Pippo wound himself up in solemn dignity and silence when he understood that it was ordained that he should proceed to the play with John Tatham. And the pair had got half way to Drury Lane—or it may have been the Lyceum, or the Haymarket, or any of half-a-dozen other theatres, for here exact information fails—before he condescended to open his lips for more than Yes or No. But Philip's gloom did not survive the raising of the curtain, and he had forgotten all offences and had taken his companion into favour again, and was talking to Uncle John between the acts with all the excitement of a country youth to whom a play still was the greatest of novelties and delights, when he suddenly saw a change come over John Tatham's countenance and a slight bow of recognition directed towards a box, which made Philip turn round and look too. And there was the old witch of the carriage, and, what was more interesting, the girl with the keen eyes, who looked out suddenly from the shade of the draperies, and fixed upon Philip—Philip himself—a look which startled that young hero much. Nor was this all; for later in the evening, after another act of the play, some one else appeared in the same box, and fixed the dark and impassive stare of a long pair of opera-glasses upon Philip. It amused him at first, and afterwards it half frightened him, and finally made him very angry. The gazer was a man, of whom, however, Philip could make nothing out but his white shirt front and his tall stature, and the long black tubes of the opera-glass. Was it at him the man was looking, or perhaps at Uncle John? But the boy thought it on the whole unlikely that anybody should stare in that way at anything so little out of the ordinary as Uncle John.

"I say," he said, in the next interval, "who is that fellow staring at us out of your old lady's box?"

"Staring at the ladies behind us, you mean," said John. "Pippo, do you think we could make a rush for it the moment the play's over? I've got something to look over when I get home. Are you game to be out the very first before the curtain's down?"

"Certainly I'm game," said Philip, delighted, "if you wish it, Uncle John."

"Yes, I wish it," said the other, and he put his hand on the boy's shoulder as the act finished and the characters of the piece drew together for the final tableau. And the pair managed it triumphantly, and were the very first to get out at the head of the crowd, to Philip's immense amusement and John Tatham's great relief. The elder hurried the younger into the first hansom, all in the twinkling of an eye: and then for the first time his gravity relaxed. Philip took it all for a great joke till they reached Ebury Street. But when his companion left him, and he had time to think of it, he began to ask himself why?



CHAPTER XLII.

I will not say that Philip's sleep was broken by this question, but it undoubtedly recurred to his mind the first thing in the morning when he jumped out of bed very late for breakfast, and the events of the past night and the lateness of the hour at which he got to rest came back upon him as excuses in the first place for his tardiness. And then, which was remarkable, it was not the scene in the play in which he had been most interested which came to his mind, but a vision of that box and the man standing in front of it staring at him through the black tubes of the opera-glass which came before Philip like a picture. Uncle John had said it was at the ladies behind, but the boy felt sure it was no lady behind, but himself, on whom that stare was fixed. Who would care to stare so at him? It faintly gleamed across his thoughts that it might be some one who had heard of the scholarship, but he dismissed that thought instantly with a blush. It also gleamed upon him with equal vagueness like a momentary but entirely futile light, consciously derived from story books, and of which he was much ashamed, that the inexplicable attention given to himself might have something to do with the girl who had such keen eyes. Philip blushed fiery red at this involuntary thought, and chased it from his mind like a mad dog; but he could not put away the picture of the box, the girl putting aside the curtain to look at him, and the opera-glass fixed upon his face. And then why was Uncle John in such a hurry to get away? It had seemed a capital joke at that moment, but when he came to think of it, it was rather strange that a man who might be Solicitor-General to-morrow if he liked, and probably Lord Chancellor in a few years, should make a schoolboy rush from the stalls of a theatre with the object of being first out. Philip disapproved of so undignified a step on the part of his elderly relation. And he saw now in the serious morning that Uncle John was very unlikely to have done it for fun. What, then, did it mean?

He came down full of these thoughts, and rather ashamed of being late, wondering whether his mother would have waited for him (which would have annoyed him), or if she would have finished her breakfast (which would have annoyed him still more). Happily for Elinor, she had hit the golden mean, and was pouring out for herself a second cup of coffee (but Philip was not aware it was the second) when the boy appeared. She was quite restored to her usual serenity and freshness, and as eager to know how he had enjoyed himself as she always was. He gave her a brief sketch of the play and of what pleased him in it as in duty bound. "But," he added, "what interested me almost more was that we had a sort of a—little play of our own."

"What?" she cried, with a startled look in her eyes. One thing that puzzled him was that she was so very easily startled, which it seemed to Philip had never been the case before.

"Well," he said, "the lady was there whom Uncle John met in the park—and the girl with her—and I believe the little dog. She made all sorts of signs to him, but he took scarcely any notice. But that's not all, mother——"

"It's a good deal, Pippo——"

"Is it? Why do you speak in that choked voice, mother? I suppose it is just one of his society acquaintances. But the thing was that before the last act somebody else came forward to the front of the box, and fixed—I was going to say his eyes, I mean his opera-glasses upon us."

Philip had meant to say upon me—but he had produced already so great an effect on his mother's face that he moderated instinctively the point of this description. "And stared at us," he added, "all the rest of the time, paying not the least attention to anything that was going on. It's a queer sensation," he went on, with a laugh, "to feel that black mysterious-looking thing like the eyes of some monster with no speculation in them, fixed upon you. Now, I want you to tell me—— What's the matter, mother?"

"Nothing, Pippo; nothing," said Elinor, faintly, stooping to lift up a book she had let fall. "Go on with your story. I am very much interested; and then, my dear?"

"Mother," cried Philip, "I don't know what has come over you, or over me. There's something going on I can't understand. You never used to have any secrets from me. I was always in your confidence—wasn't I, mother?"

It was not a book she had let fall, but a ring that she had dropped from her finger, and which had to be followed over the carpet. It made her red and flushed when she half raised her head to say, "Yes, Pippo—you know—I have always told you——"

Philip did not remark that what his mother said was nothing after all. He got up to help her to look for her ring, and put his arm round her waist as she knelt on the floor.

"Yes, mamma," he said, tenderly, protectingly, "I do know: but something's changed; either it's in me that makes you feel you can't trust me—or else it is in you. And I don't know which would be worst."

"There is no change," she said, after a moment, for she could not help the ring being found, and immediately when his quick, young eyes came to the search: but she did not look him in the face. "There is no change, dear. There is only some worrying business which involves a great many troubles of my old life before you were born. You shall hear—everything—in a little while: but I cannot enter into it all at this moment. It is full of complications and—secrets that belong to other people. Pippo, you must promise me to wait patiently, and to believe—to believe—always the best you can—of your mother."

The boy laughed as he raised her up, still holding her with his arm. "Believe the best I can! Well, I don't think that will be a great effort, mother. Only to think that you can't trust me as you always have done makes me wretched. We've been such friends, haven't we, mamma? I've always told you everything, or at least everything except just the nonsense at school: and you've told me everything. And if we are going to be different now——"

"You've told me everything!" the boy was as sure of it as that he was born. She had to hold by him to support herself, and it cost her a strong effort to restrain the shiver that ran through her. "We are not going to be different," she said, "as soon as we leave London—or before—you shall know everything about this business of mine, Pippo. Will that satisfy you? In the meantime it is not pleasant business, dear; and you must bear with me if I am abstracted sometimes, and occupied, and cross."

"But, mother," said Philip, bending over her with that young celestial foolish look of gravity and good advice with which a neophyte will sometimes address the much-experienced and heavily-laden pilgrim, "don't you think it would be easier if it was all open between us, and I took my share? If it is other people's secrets I would not betray them, you know that."

Unfortunately Elinor here murmured, scarcely knowing what words came from her lips, "That is what John says."

"John," said the boy, furious with the quick rage of injured tenderness and pride, "Uncle John! and you tell him more, him, an outsider, than you tell me!"

He let her go then, which was a great relief to Elinor, for she could command herself better when he was a little farther off, and could not feel the thrill that was in her, and the thumping of her heart.

"You must remember, Pippo," she said, "what I have told you, that my present very disagreeable, very painful business is about things that happened before you were born, which John knew everything about. He was my adviser then, as far as I would take any advice, which I am afraid never was much, Pippo," she said; "never, alas! all my life. Granny will tell you that. But John, always the kindest friend and the best brother in the world, did everything he could. And it would have been better for us all if I had taken his advice instead of always, I fear, always my own way."

Strangely enough this cheered Pippo and swept the cloud from his face. "I'm glad you didn't take anybody's advice, mother. I shouldn't have liked it. I've more faith in you than anybody. Well, then, now about this man. What man in the world—I really mean in the world, in what is called society, for that is the kind of people they were—could have such a curiosity about—me?"

She had resumed her seat, and her face was turned away from him. Also the exquisite tone of complacency and innocent self-appreciation with which Philip expressed this wonder helped her a little to surmount the situation. Elinor could have laughed had her heart been only a trifle less burdened. She said: "Are you sure it was at you?"

"Uncle John said something about ladies behind us, but I am sure it was no ladies behind. It might, of course," the boy added, cautiously, "have been him, you know. I suppose Uncle John's a personage, isn't he? But after all, you know, hang it, mother, it isn't easy to believe that a fellow like that would stare so at Uncle John."

"Poor John! It is true there is not much novelty about him," said Elinor, with a tremble in her voice, which, if it was half agitation, was yet a little laughter too: for there are scarcely any circumstances, however painful, in which those who are that way moved by nature are quite able to quench the unconquerable laugh. She added, with a falter in which there was no laughter, "and what—was the—fellow like?"

"All that I could see was that he was a tall man. I saw his large shirt-front and his black evening clothes, and something like grey hair above those two big, black goggles——"

"Grey hair!" Elinor said, with a low suppressed cry.

"He never took them away from his eyes for a moment, so of course I could not see his face, or anything much except that he was more than common tall—like myself," Pippo said, with a little air of pleased vanity in the comparison.

Like himself! She did not make any remark. It is very doubtful whether she could have done so. There came before her so many visions of the past, and such a vague, confused, bewildering future, of which she could form no definite idea what it would be. Was it with a pang that she foresaw that drawing towards another influence: that mingled instinct, curiosity, perhaps admiration and wonder, which already seemed to move her boy's unconscious mind? Elinor did not even know whether that would hurt her at all. Even now there seemed a curious pungent sense of half-pleasure in the pain. Like himself! So he was. And if it should be that it was his father, who for hours had stood there, not taking his eyes off the boy (for hours her imagination said, though Pippo had not said so), his father who had known where she was and never disturbed her, never interfered with her; the man who had summoned her to perform her martyrdom for him, never doubting—Phil, with grey hair! To say what mingled feelings swept through Elinor's mind, with all these elements in them, is beyond my power. She saw him with his face concealed, standing up unconscious of the crowded place and of the mimic life on the stage, his eyes fixed upon his son whom he had never seen before. Where was there any drama in which there was a scene like this? His son, his only child, the heir! Unconsciously even to herself that fact had some influence, no doubt, on Elinor's thoughts. And it would be impossible to say how much influence had that unexpected subduing touch of the grey hair: and the strange change in the scene altogether. The foolish, noisy, "fast" woman, with her tourbillon of men and dogs about her, turned into the old lady of Pippo's careless remark, with her daughter beside her far more important than she: and the tall figure in the front of the box, with grey hair——

Young Philip had not the faintest light or guidance in the discovery of his mother's thoughts. He was much more easy and comfortable now that there had been an explanation between them, though it was one of those explanations which explained nothing. He even forgave Uncle John for knowing more than he did, moved thereto by the consolatory thought that John's advice had never been taken, and that his mother had always followed her own way. This was an incalculable comfort to Pippo's mind, and gave him composure to wait calmly for the clearing up of the mystery, and the restoration of that perfect confidence between his mother and himself which he was so firmly convinced had existed all his life. He was a great deal happier after, and gave her an excellent account of the play, which he had managed to see quite satisfactorily, notwithstanding the other "little play of our own" which ran through everything. At Philip's age one can see two things at once well enough. I knew a boy who at one and the same moment got the benefit of (1st) his own story book, which he read lying at full length before the fire, half buried in the fur of a great rug; and (2nd) of the novel which was being read out over his head for the benefit of the other members of the family—or at least he strenuously asserted he did, and indeed proved himself acquainted with both. Philip in the same way had taken in everything in the play, even while his soul was intent upon the opera-glass in the box. He had not missed anything of either. He gave an account of the first, from which the drama might have been written down had fate destroyed it: and had noticed the minauderies of the heroine, and the eager determination not to be second to her in anything which distinguished the first gentleman, as if he had nothing else in his mind: while all the time he had been under the fascination of the two black eyeholes braques upon him, the mysterious gaze as of a ghost from eyes which he never saw.

This occupied some part of the forenoon, and Philip was happy. But when he had completed his tale and began to feel the necessity of going out, and remembered that he had nowhere to go and nothing to do, the prospect was not alluring. He tried very hard to persuade his mother to go out with him, but this was a risk from which Elinor shrank. She shrank, too, from his proposal at last to go out to the park by himself.

"To the Row. I sha'n't know the people except those who are in Punch every week, and I shall envy the fellows riding—but at least it will be something to see."

"I wish you would not go to the Row, Pippo."

"Why, mother? Doesn't everybody go? And you never were here at this time of the year before."

"No," she said, with a long breath of despair. No; of all times of the year this was the one in which she had never risked him in London. And, oh! that he had been anywhere in the world except London now!

Philip, who had been watching her countenance with great interest, here patted her on the shoulder with condescending, almost paternal, kindness. "Don't you be frightened, mother. I'll not get into any mischief. I'll neither be rode over, nor robbed, nor run away. I'll take as great care of myself as if you had been there."

"I'm not afraid that you will be ridden over or robbed," she said, forcing a smile; "but there is one thing, Pippo. Don't talk to anybody whom you—don't know. Don't let yourself be drawn into—— If you should meet, for instance, that lady—who was in the theatre last night."

"Yes, mother?"

"Don't let her make acquaintance with you; don't speak to her, nor the girl, nor any one that may be with her. At the risk even of being uncivil——"

"Why, mother," he said, elevating his eyebrows, "how could I be uncivil to a lady?"

"Because I tell you," she cried, "because you must—because I shall sit here in terror counting every moment till you come back, if you don't promise me this."

He looked at her with the most wondering countenance, half disapproving, half pitying. Was she going mad? what was happening to her? was she after all, though his mother, no better than the jealous foolish women in books, who endeavoured at all costs to separate their children from every influence but their own? How could Pippo think such things of his mother? and yet what else could he think?

"I had better," he said, "if that is how you feel, mother, not go to the Row at all."

"Much better, much better!" she cried. "I'll tell you what we'll do, Pippo—you have never been to see—the Tower." She had run over all the most far-off and unlikely places in her mind, and this occurred to her as the most impossible of all to attract any visitor of whom she could be afraid. "I have changed my mind," she added. "Well have a hansom, and I will go with you to see the Tower."

"So long as you go with me," said Pippo, "I don't care where I go."

And they set out almost joyfully as in their old happy expeditions of old, for that long drive through London in the hansom. And yet the boy was only lulled for the moment, and in his heart was more and more perplexed what his mother could mean.



CHAPTER XLIII.

Fortune was favourable to Elinor that day. At the Tower, where she duly went over everything that was to be seen with Pippo, conscious all the time of his keen observance of her through all that he was doing, and even through his interest in what he saw—and feeling for the first time in her life that there was between her boy and her something that he felt, something that was not explained by anything she had said, and that awaited the dreadful moment when everything would have to be told—at the Tower, as I say, they met some friends from the north, the rector of the parish, who had come up with his son to see town, and was naturally taking his boy, as Elinor took hers, to see all that was not town, in the usual sense of the word. They were going to Woolwich and Greenwich next day, and with a pang of mingled trouble and relief in her mind Elinor contrived to engage Pippo to accompany them. On the second day I think they were to go to St. Katherine's Docks, or the Isle of Dogs, or some other equally important and interesting sight—far better no doubt for the two youths than to frequent such places as the Row, and gaze at the stream of gaiety and luxury which they could not join. Pippo in ordinary circumstances would have been delighted to see Woolwich and the docks—but it was so evident to him that his mother was anxiously desirous to dispose of him so, that his satisfaction was much lessened. The boy, however, was magnanimous enough to consent without any appearance of reluctance. In the many thoughts which filled his mind Philip showed his fine nature, by having already come to consent to the possibility that his mother might have business of her own into which he had no right to enter unless at her own time and with her full consent. It cost him an effort, I allow, to come to that: but yet he did so, and resolved, a little pride helping him, to inquire no more, and if possible to wonder or be offended no more, but to wait the time she had promised, when the old rule of perfect confidence should be re-established between them. The old rule! if Pippo had but known! nothing yet had given Elinor such a sense of guilt as his conviction that she had told him everything, that there had been no secrets between them during all the happy life that was past.

How entirely relieved Elinor was when he started to join his friends next morning it would be impossible to put into words. She watched all his lingering movements before he went with eyes in which she tried to quench the impatience, and look only with the fond admiration and interest she felt upon all his little preparations, his dawning sense of what was becoming in apparel, the flower in his coat, the carefully rolled umbrella, the hat brushed to the most exquisite smoothness, the handkerchief just peeping from his breast-pocket. It is always a revelation to a woman to find that these details occupy as much of a young man's attention as her own toilette occupies hers; and that he is as tremulously alive to "what is worn" in many small particulars that never catch her eye, as she is to details which entirely escape him. She smiles at him as he does at her, each in that conscious superiority to the other, which is on the whole an indulgent sentiment. Underneath all her anxiety to see him go, to get rid of him (was that the dreadful truth in this terrible crisis of her affairs?), she felt the amusement of the boy's little coquetries, and the mother's admiration of his fresh looks, his youthful brightness, his air of distinction; how different from the Rector's boy, who was a nice fellow enough, and a credit to his rectory, and whose mother, I do not doubt, felt in his ruddy good looks something much superior in robustness, and strength, and manhood to the too-tall and too-slight golden youth of the ladies at Lakeside! It even flitted across Elinor's mind to give him within herself the title that was to be his, everybody said—Lord Lomond! And then she asked herself indignantly what honour it could add to her spotless boy to have such a vain distinction; a name that had been soiled by so much ignoble use? Elinor had prided herself all her life on an indifference to, almost a contempt for, the distinctions of rank: and that it should occur to her to think of that title as an embellishment to Pippo—nay, to think furtively, without her own knowledge, so to speak, that Pippo looked every inch a lord and heir to a peerage, was an involuntary weakness almost incredible. She blushed for herself as she realised it:—a peerage which had meant so little that was excellent—a name connected with so many undesirable precedents: still I suppose when it is his own even the veriest democrat is conscious at least of the picturesqueness, the superiority, as a mode of distinguishing one man from another, of anything that can in the remotest sense be called a historical name.

When Pippo was out of sight Elinor turned from the window with a sigh, and came back to the dark chamber of her own life, full at this moment of all the gathered blackness of the past and of the future. She put her hands over her eyes, and sank down upon a seat, as if to shut out from herself all that was before her. But shut it out as she might, there it was—the horrible court with the judgment-seat, the rows of faces bent upon her, the silence through which her own voice must rise alone, saying—what? What was it she was called there to say? Oh, how little they knew who suggested that her mother should have been called instead of her, with all her minute old-fashioned calculations and exact memory, who even now, when all was over, would probably convict Elinor of a mistake! Even at that penalty what would not she give to have it over, the thing said, the event done with, whatever it might bring after it! And it could now be only a very short time till the moment of the ordeal would come, when she should stand up in the face of her country, before the solemn judge on his bench, before all the gaping, wondering people—before, oh! thought most dreadful of all, which we would not, could not, contemplate—before one who knew everything, and say—— She picked herself up trembling as it were, and uncovered her eyes, and protested to herself that she would say nothing that was not true. Nothing that was not true! She would tell her story—so well remembered, so often conned; that story that had been put into her lips twenty years ago which she had repeated then confused, not knowing how it was that what was a simple fact should nevertheless not be true. Alas! she knew that very well now, and yet would have to repeat it before God and the world. But thinking would make it no better—thinking could only make it worse. She sprang up again, and began to occupy herself with something she had to do: the less it was thought over the better: for now the trial had begun, and her ordeal would soon be done too. If only the boy could be occupied, kept away—if only she could be left alone to do what she had to do! That he should be there was the last aggravation of which her fate was capable; there in idleness, reading the papers in the morning, which was a thing she had so lately calculated a boy at school was unlikely to do; and what so likely as that his eye would be caught by his own name in the report of the trial, which would be an exciting trial and fully reported—a trial which interested society. The boy would see his own name: she could almost hear him cry out, looking up from his breakfast, "Hallo, mother! here's something about a Philip Compton!" And all the questions that would follow—"Is he the same Comptons that we are? What Comptons do we belong to? You never told me anything about my family. Is this man any relation, I wonder? Both surname and Christian name the same. It's strange if there is no connection!" She could almost hear the words he would say—all that and more—and what should she reply?

"I have only one thing to say, Elinor," said John, to whom in her desperation she turned again, as she always did, disturbing him, poor man, in his chambers as he was collecting his notes and his thoughts in the afternoon after his work was over: "it is the same as I have always said; even now make a clean breast of it to the boy. Tell him everything; better that he should hear it from your own lips than that it should burst upon him as a discovery. He has but to meet Lady Mariamne in the park, the most likely thing in the world——"

"No, John," cried Elinor, "no; the Marshalls are here, our Rector from Lakeside, and he is taking his boy to see all the sights. I have got Pippo to go with them. They are going to Woolwich to-day, and afterwards to quite a long list of things—oh, entirely out of everybody's way."

Her little look of uneasy triumph and satisfaction made John smile. She was not half so sure as she tried to look; but, all the same, had a little pride, a little pleasure in her own management, and in the happy chance of the Marshalls being in London, which was a thing that could not have been planned, an intervention of Providence. He could not refuse to smile—partly with her, partly at her simplicity—but, all the same, he shook his head.

"The only way in which there is any safety—the only chance of preserving him from a shock, a painful shock, Elinor, that may upset him for life——"

"How do you mean, upset him for life?"

"By showing him that his mother, whom he believes in like heaven, has deceived him since ever he was born."

She covered her face with her hands, and burst into a sobbing cry. "Oh, John, you don't know how true that is! He said to me only yesterday, 'You have always told me everything, mother. There has never been any secret between us.' Oh! John, John, only think of having that said to me, and knowing what I know!"

"Well, Elinor; believe me, my dear, there is but one thing to do. The boy is a good boy, full of love and kindness."

"Oh, isn't he, John? the best boy, the dearest——"

"And adores his mother, as a boy should," John got up from his chair and walked about the room for a little, and then he came behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Tell him, Elinor: my dear Nelly, as if I had never said a word on the subject before, I beseech you tell him, trust him fully, even now, at the eleventh hour."

She raised her head with a quivering, wistful smile. "The moment the trial is over, the moment it is over! I give you my word, John."

"Do not wait till it is over, do it now; to-night when he comes home."

She began to tremble so that John Tatham was alarmed—and kept looking at him with an imploring look, her lips quivering and every line in her countenance. "Oh, not to-night. Spare me to-night! After the trial; after my part of it. At least—after—after—oh, give me till to-morrow to think of it!"

"My dear Elinor, I count for nothing in it. I am not your judge; I am your partisan, you know, whatever you do. But I am sure it will be the better done, and even the easier done, the sooner you do it."

"I will—I will: at the very latest the day after I have done my part at the trial. Is not that enough to think of at one time, for a poor woman who has never stood up before the public in all her life, never had a question put to her? Oh, John! oh, John!"

"Elinor, Elinor! you are too sensible a woman to make a fuss about a simple duty like this."

"There speaks the man who has stood before the world all his life, and is not afraid of any public," she said, with a tremulous laugh. But she had won her moment's delay, and thus was victorious after a fashion, as it was her habit to be.

I do not know that young Philip much amused himself at Woolwich that day. He did and he did not. He could not help being interested in all he saw, and he liked the Marshalls well enough, and in ordinary circumstances would have entered very heartily into any sight-seeing. But he kept thinking all the time what his mother was doing, and wondering over the mysterious business which was to be explained to him sooner or later, and which he had so magnanimously promised to wait for the revelation of, and entertain no suspicions about in the meantime. The worst of such magnanimity is that it is subject to dreadful failings of the heart in its time of waiting—never giving in, indeed, but yet feeling the pressure whenever there is a moment to think. This matter mixed itself up so with all Philip saw that he never in after life saw a great cannon, or a pyramid of balls (which is not, to be sure, an every-day sight) without a vague sensation of trouble, as of something lying behind which was concealed from him, and which he would scarcely endure to have concealed. When he left his friends in the evening, however, it was with another engagement for to-morrow, and several to-morrows after, and great jubilation on the part of both father and son, as to their good luck in meeting, and having his companionship in their pleasures. And, in fact, these pleasures were carried on for several days, always with the faint bitter in them to Philip, of that consciousness that his mother was pleased to be rid of him, glad to see his back turned, the most novel, extraordinary sensation to the boy. And it must also be confessed that he kept a very keen eye on all the passing carriages, always hoping to see that one in which the witch, as he called her, and the girl with the keen eyes were—for he had not picked up the name of Lady Mariamne, keen as his young ears were, and though John had mentioned it in his presence, partly, perhaps, because it was so very unlikely a name. As for the man with the opera-glasses, he had not seen his face at all, and therefore could not hope to recognise him. And yet he felt a little thrill run through him when any tall man with grey hair passed in the street. He almost thought he could have known the tall slim figure with a certain swaying movement in it, which was not like anybody else. I need not say, however, that even had these indications been stronger, Woolwich and the Isle of Dogs were unlikely places in which to meet Lady Mariamne, or any gentleman likely to be in attendance on her. In Whitechapel, indeed, had he but known, he might have met Miss Dolly: but then in Whitechapel there were no sights which virtuous youth is led to see. And Philip's man with the opera-glass was, during these days, using that aid to vision in a very different place, and had neither leisure nor inclination to move vaguely about the world.

For three days this went on successfully enough: young Philip Compton and Ralph Marshall saw enough to last them all the rest of their lives, and there was no limit to the satisfaction of the good country clergyman, who felt that he never could have succeeded so completely in improving his son's mind, instead of delivering him over to the frivolous amusements of town, if it had not been for the companionship of Philip, who made Ralph feel that it was all right, and that he was not being victimised for nothing. But on the fourth day a hitch occurred. John Tatham had been made to give all sorts of orders and admissions for the party to see every nook and corner of the Temple, much to Elinor's alarm, who felt that place was too near to be safe; but she was herself in circumstances too urgent to permit her dwelling upon it. She had left the house on that particular morning long before Philip was ready, and every anxiety was dulled in her mind for the moment by the overwhelming sense of the crisis arrived. She went to his room before he had left it, and gave him a kiss, and told him that she might be detained for a long time; that she did know exactly at what hour she should return. She was very pale, paler than he had ever seen her, and her manner had a suppressed agitation in it which startled Philip; but she managed to smile as she assured him she was quite well, and that there was nothing troubling her. "Nothing, nothing that has to do with us—a little disturbed for a friend—but that will be all over," she said, "to-night, I hope." Philip made a leisurely breakfast after she was gone, and it happened to him that morning for the first time as he was alone to make a study of the papers. And the consequence was that he said to himself really those words which his mother in imagination had so often heard him say, "Hallo! Philip Compton, my name! I wonder if he is any relation. I wonder if we have anything to do with those St. Serf Comptons." Then he reflected, but vaguely, that he did not know to what Comptons he belonged, nor even what county he came from, to tell the truth. And then it was time to hurry over his breakfast, to swallow his cup of tea, to snatch up his hat and gloves, and to rush off to meet his friends. But on that day Philip was unlucky. When he got to the place of meeting he found nothing but a telegram from Ralph, announcing that his father was so knocked up with his previous exertions that they were obliged to take a quiet day. And thus Philip was left in the Temple, of all places in the world, on the day when his mother was to appear in the law-courts close by—on the day of all others when if she could have sent him for twenty-four hours to the end of the earth she would have done so—on the day when so terrible was the stress and strain upon herself that for once in the world even Pippo had gone as completely out of her mind as if he had not been.

The boy looked about him for awhile, and reflected what to do, and then he started out into the Strand, conscientiously waiting for the Marshalls before he should visit the Temple and all its historical ways; and then he was amused and excited by seeing a barrister or two in wig and gown pass by; and then he thought of the trial in the newspapers, in which somebody who, like himself, was called Philip Compton, was involved. Philip was still lingering, wondering if he could get into the court, a little shy of trying, but gradually growing eager, thinking at least that he would try and get a sight of the wonderful grand building, still so new, when he suddenly saw Simmons, his uncle John's clerk, passing through the quadrangle of the law-courts. Here was his chance. He rushed forward and caught the clerk by the arm, who was in a great hurry, as everybody seemed to be. "Oh, Simmons, can you get me into that Brown trial?" cried Philip. "Brown!" Simmons said. "Mr. Tatham is not on in that." "Oh, never mind about Mr. Tatham," said the boy. "Can't you get me in? I have never seen a trial, and I take an interest in that." "I advise you," said Simmons, "to wait for one that your uncle's in." "Can't you get me in?" said Philip, impatiently: and this touched the pride of Simmons, who had many friends, if not in high places, yet in low.



CHAPTER XLIV.

Philip had never been in a court of law before. I am almost as ignorant as he was, yet I cannot imagine anything more deeply interesting than to find one's self suddenly one of a crowded assembly trying more or less—for is not the public but a larger jury, sometimes contradicting the verdict of the other, and when it does so almost invariably winning the cause?—a fellow-creature, following out the traces of his crime or his innocence, looking on while a human drama is unrolled, often far more interesting than any dramatic representation of life. He was confused for the moment by the crowd, by the new and unusual spectacle, by the bewilderment of seeing for the first time what he had so often heard of, the judge on the bench, the wigged barristers below, the one who was speaking, so different from any other public speaker Philip had ever heard, addressing not the assembly, but the smaller circle round him, interrupted by other voices: the accused in his place and the witness—standing there more distinctly at the bar than the culprit was—bearing his testimony before earth and heaven, with the fate of another hanging on his words. The boy was so full of the novel sight—which yet he had heard of so often that he could identify every part of it, and soon perceived the scope of what was going on—that he did not at first listen, so full was he of the interest of what he saw. The imperturbable judge, grave, letting no emotion appear on his face; the jury, just the reverse, showing how this and that piece of evidence affected them; the barristers who were engaged, so keenly alive to everything, starting up now and then when the witness swerved from the subject, when the opposition proposed a leading question, or one that was irrelevant to the issue; the others who were not "in it," as Simmons said, so indifferent; and then the spectators who had places about or near the central interest. Philip saw, with a sudden leap of his heart, the ladies of the theatre and park, the witch and the girl with the keen eyes, in a conspicuous place; the old lady, as he called her, full of movement and gesture, making signs to others near her, keeping up an interrupted whispering, the girl at her side as impassive as the judge himself. And then Pippo's roving eye caught a figure seated among the barristers with an opera-glass, which made his heart jump still more. Was that the man? He had, at the moment Philip perceived him, his opera-glass in his hand: a tall man leaning back with a look of interest, very conspicuous among the wigged heads about him, with grey hair in a mass on his forehead as if it had grown thin and had been coaxed to cover some denuded place, and a face which it seemed to Philip he had seen before, a face worn—was it with study, was it with trouble? Pippo knew of no other ways in which the eyes could be so hollowed out, and the lines so deeply drawn. A man, perhaps, hard worn with life and labor and sorrow. A strange sympathy sprang up in the boy's mind: he was sure he knew the face. It was a face full of records, though young Philip could not read them—the face, he thought, of a man who had had much to bear. Was it the same man who had fixed so strange a gaze upon himself at the theatre? And what interest could this man have in the trial that was going on?

The accused at the bar was certainly not of a kind to arouse the interest which sprang into being at sight of this worn and noble hero. He had the air of a comfortable man of business, a man evidently well off, surprised at once and indignant to find himself there, sometimes bursting with eagerness to explain, sometimes leaning back with an air of affected contempt—not a good man in trouble, as Philip would have liked to think him, nor a criminal fully conscious of what might be awaiting him; but a man of the first respectability, indignant and incredulous that anything should be brought against him. Philip felt himself able to take no interest whatever in Mr. Brown.

It was not till he had gone through all these surprises and observations that he began to note what was being said. Philip was not learned in the procedure of the law, nor did he know anything about the case; but it became vaguely apparent to him after awhile that the immediate question concerned the destruction of the books of a joint-stock company, of which Brown was the manager, an important point which the prosecution had some difficulty in bringing home to him. After it had been proved that the books had been destroyed, and that so far as was known it was to Brown's interest alone to destroy them, the evidence as to what had been seen on the evening on which this took place suddenly took a new turn, and seemed to introduce a new actor on the scene. Some one had been seen to enter the office in the twilight who could not be identified with Brown; whom, indeed, even Philip, with his boyish interest in the novelty of the proceedings, vaguely perceived to be another man. The action of the piece, so to speak (for it was like a play to Philip), changed and wavered here—and he began to be sensible of the character of the different players in it. The counsel for the prosecution was a well-known and eminent barrister, one of the most noted of the time, a man before whom witnesses trembled, and even the Bench itself was sometimes known to quail. That this was the case on the present occasion Philip vaguely perceived. There were points continually arising which the opposing counsel made objections to, appealing to the judge; but it rarely failed that the stronger side, which was that of the prosecution, won the day. The imperious accuser, whose resources of precedent and argument seemed boundless, carried everything with a high hand. The boy, of course, was not aware of the weakness of the representative of the majesty of the law, nor the inferiority, in force and skill, of the defence; but he gradually came to a practical perception of how the matter stood.

Philip listened with growing interest, sometimes amused, sometimes indignant, as the remorseless prosecutor ploughed his way through the witnesses, whom he bullied into admissions that they were certain of nothing, and that in the dusk of that far-off evening, the man whom they had sworn at the time to be quite unlike him, might in reality have been Brown. Philip got greatly interested in this question. He took up the opposite side himself with much heat, feeling as sure as if he had been there that it was not Brown: and he was delighted in his excitement, when there stood up one man who would not be bullied, a man who had the air of a respectable clerk of the lower class, and who held his own. He had been an office boy, the son apparently of the housekeeper in charge of the premises referred to when the incident occurred, and the gist of his evidence was that the prisoner at the bar—so awful a personage once to the little office boy, so curtly discussed now as Brown—had left the office at four o'clock in the afternoon of the 6th of September, and had not appeared again.

"A different gentleman altogether came in the evening, a much taller man, with a large moustache."

"Where was it that you saw this man?"

"Slipping in at the side door of the office as if he didn't want to be seen."

"Was that a door which was generally open, or used by the public?"

"Never, sir; but none of the doors were used at that time of night."

"And how, then, could any one get admittance there?"

"Only those that had private keys; the directors had their private keys."

"Then your conclusion was that it was a director, and that he had a right to be there?"

"I knew it was a director, sir, because I knew the gentleman," the witness said.

"You say it was late in the evening of the 6th of September. Was it daylight at the time?"

"Oh, no, sir; nearly dark—a sort of a half light."

"Did the person you saw go in openly, or make any attempt at concealment?"

"He had a light coat on, like the coats gentlemen wear when they go to the theatre, and something muffled round his throat, and his hat pulled down over his face."

"Like a person who wished to conceal himself?"

"Yes, sir," said the witness.

"And how, then, if he was muffled about the throat, and his hat pulled over his face, in the half light late in the evening, could you see that he had a large moustache?"

The witness stood and stared with his mouth open, and made no reply.

The counsel, with a louder voice and those intonations of contemptuous insinuation which are calculated to make a man feel that he is convicted of the basest perjury, and is being held up to the reprobation of the world, repeated the question, "How could you see that he had a large moustache?"

"I saw it," said the witness, hotly, "because I knew the gentleman."

"And how did you know the gentleman? You thought you recognised the gentleman, and therefore, though you could not possibly perceive it, you saw his moustache? I fear that is not an answer that will satisfy the jury."

"I submit," said the counsel for the defence, "that it is very evident what the witness means. He recognised a man with whose appearance he was perfectly familiar."

"I saw him," said the witness, "as clear as I see you, sir."

"What! in the dark, late on a September night, with a coat collar up to his ears, and a hat pulled down over his face! You see my learned friend in broad daylight, and with the full advantage of standing opposite to him and studying his looks at your leisure. You might as well say because you know the gentleman that you could see his half was dark and abundant under his wig."

At this a laugh ran through the court, at which Philip, listening, was furiously indignant, as it interrupted the course of the investigation. It was through the sound of this laugh that he heard the witness demand loudly, "How could I be mistaken, when I saw Mr. Compton every day?"

Mr. Compton! Philip's heart began to beat like the hammers of a steam-engine. Was this, then, the real issue? And who was Mr. Compton? He could not have told how it was that he somehow identified the man whom the witness had seen, or had not seen, with the man who had the opera-glass, and who had fixed a dreadful blank stare upon the other in the witness-box during a great part of this discussion. Was it he who was on his trial, and not Brown? And who was he? And where was it that Philip had known and grown familiar with that face, which, so far as he could remember, he had never seen before, but which belonged to the man who bore his own name?

When the counsel for the prosecution had turned the unfortunate witness outside in, and proved that he knew nothing and had seen nobody: and that, besides, he was a man totally unworthy of credit, who had lied from his cradle, and whose own mother and friends put no trust in him, the court adjourned for lunch. But Philip forgot that he required any lunch. His mind was filled with echoes of that name. He began to feel a strange certainty that it was the same man who had fixed him with the same gaze in the theatre. Who was Mr. Compton, and what was he? The question took the boy's breath away.

He sat through the interval, finding a place where he could see better, through the kind offices of the usher to whom Simmons had commended him, and waiting with impatience till the trial should be resumed. Nobody remarked the boy among the crowd of the ordinary public, many of whom remained, as he did, to see it out, Philip cared nothing about Brown: all that he wanted to know was about this namesake of his—this Compton, this other man, who was not Brown. If it was the man with the opera-glass, he was not so much excited as his young namesake, for he went to luncheon with the rest; while the boy remained counting the minutes, eager to begin the story, the drama, again. The impression left, however, on Philip's impartial mind was that the last witness, though driven and badgered out of what wits he had by the examination, had really seen a man whom he perfectly knew, his recognition of whom was not really affected either by the twilight or the disguise.

The thrill of interest which he felt running through all his veins as the court filled again was like, but stronger than, the interest with which he had ever seen the curtain rise in the theatre. His heart beat: he felt as if in some sort it was his own fate that was going to be decided: all his prepossessions were in favour of that other accused, yet not openly accused, person who was not Brown; and yet he felt almost as sure as if he had been there that the office boy of twenty years ago had seen that man stealing in at the side door.

Young Philip did not catch the name of the next witness who was called; such a thing will happen sometimes even with the quickest ear at a moment when every whisper is important. If he had heard he would probably have thought that he was deceived by his excitement, impossible as it was that such a name should have anything to do with this or any other trial. The shock therefore was unbroken when, watching with all the absorbed interest of a spectator at the most exciting play, the boy saw a lady come slowly forward into the witness-box. Philip had the same strange sense of knowing who it was that he had felt the previous witness to have in respect to the man whom he could not see, but yet had infallibly recognised: but he said to himself, No! it was not possible! No! it was not possible! She came forward slowly, put up the veil that had covered her face, and grasped the bar before her to support herself; and then the boy sprang to his feet, in the terrible shock which electrified him from head to feet! His movements, and the stifled cry he uttered, made a little commotion in the crowd, and called forth the cry of "Silence in the court." His neighbours around him hustled him back into his place, where he sank down incapable indeed of movement, knowing that he could not go and pluck her from that place—could not rush to her side, could do nothing but sit there and gasp and gaze at his mother. His mother, in such a place! in such a case! with which—surely, surely—she could have nothing to do. Elinor Compton, at the time referred to Elinor Dennistoun, of Windyhill, in Surrey—there was no doubt about the name now. And Philip had time enough to identify everything, name and person, for there rose a vague surging of contention about the first questions put to her, which were not evidence, according to the counsel on the other side, which he felt with fury was done on purpose to prolong the agony. During this time she stood immovable, holding on by the rail before her, her eyes fixed upon it, perfectly pale, like marble, and as still. Among all the moving, rustling, palpitating crowd, and the sharp volleys of the lawyers' voices, and even the contradictory opinions elicited from the harassed judge himself—to look at that figure standing there, which scarcely seemed to breathe, had the most extraordinary effect. For a time Philip was like her, scarcely breathing, holding on in an unconscious sympathy to the back of the seat before him, his eyes wide open, fixed upon her. But as his nerves began to accustom themselves to that extraordinary, inconceivable sight, the other particulars of the scene came out of the mist, and grew apparent to him in a lurid light that did not seem the light of day. He saw the eager looks at her of the ladies in the privileged places, the whispers that were exchanged among them. He saw underneath the witness-box, almost within reach of her, John Tatham, with an anxious look on his face. And then he saw, what was the most extraordinary of all, the man—who had been the centre of his interest till now—the man whose name was Philip Compton, like his own; he who fixed the last witness with the stare of his opera-glass, who had kept it in perpetual use. He had put it down now on the table before him, his arms were folded on his breast, and his head bent. Philip thought he detected now and then a furtive look under his brows at the motionless witness awaiting through the storm of words the moment when her turn would come; but though he had leant forward all the time, following every point of the proceedings with interest, he now drew back, effaced himself, retired as it were from the scene. What was there between these two? Was there any link between them? What was the drama about to be played out before Pippo's innocent and ignorant eyes? At last the storm and wrangling seemed to come to an end, and there came out low but clear the sound of her voice. It seemed only now, when he heard his mother speak, that he was certified that so inconceivable a thing as that she should be here was a matter of fact: his mother here! Philip fixed his whole being upon her—eyes, thoughts, absorbed attention, he scarcely seemed to breathe except through her. Could she see him, he wondered, through all that crowd? But then he perceived that she saw nothing with those eyes that looked steadily in front of her, not turning a glance either to the right or left.

For some time Philip was baffled completely by the questions put, which were those to which the counsel on the other side objected as not evidence, and which seemed, even to the boy's inexperienced mind, to be mere play upon the subject, attempts to connect her in some way with the question as to Brown's guilt or innocence. Something in the appearance, at this stage, of a lady so unlike the other witnesses, seemed to exercise a certain strange effect, however, quickening everybody's interest, and when the examining counsel approached the question of the date which had already been shown to be so momentous, all interruptions were silenced, and the court in general, like Philip, held its breath. There were many there expecting what are called in the newspapers "revelations:" the defence was taken by surprise, and did not know what new piece of evidence was about to be produced: and even the examining counsel was, for such a man, subdued a little by the other complicating threads of the web among which he had to pick his way.

"You recollect," he said in his most soothing tones; "the evening of the 6th September, 1863?"

She bowed her head in reply. And then as if that was sparing herself too much, added a low "Yes."

"As I am instructed, you were not then married, but engaged to Mr. Philip Compton. Is that so?"

"Yes."

"One of the directors of the company of which the defendant was manager?"

"I believe so."

"I am sorry to have to enter upon matters so private: but there was some question, I believe, about an investment to be made of a portion of your fortune in the hands of this company?"

"Yes."

"You received a visit from Mr. Compton on the subject on the day I have mentioned."

The witness made a slight movement and pause: then answered as before, but more firmly, "Yes:" she added, "not on this subject," in a lower tone.

"You can recollect, more or less exactly, the time of his arrival?"

"Yes. It was in the evening, after dinner; in the darkening before the lamps were lit."

"Were you looking for him on that night?"

"No; it was an unexpected visit. He was going to Ireland, and paused on his way through town to come down to Windyhill."

"You have particular reasons for remembering the date, which make it impossible that there could be any mistake?"

"No; there could be no mistake."

"You will perhaps inform the court, Mrs. Compton, why your memory is so exact on this point."

Once more she hesitated for a moment, and then replied—

"It was exactly ten days before my marriage."

"I think that will do, Mrs. Compton. I will trouble you no further," the counsel said.

The hubbub which sprang up upon this seemed to Philip for the moment as if it were directed against his mother, which, of course, was not the case, but intended to express the indignant surprise of the defence at the elaborate examination of a witness who had nothing to say on the main subject.

The leader on the other side, however, though taken by surprise, and denouncing the trick which his learned brother had played upon the court by producing evidence which had really nothing to do with the matter, announced his intention to put a further question or two to Mrs. Compton. Young Philip in the crowd started again from his seat with the feeling that he would like to fly at that man's throat.

"Twenty years is a long time," he said, "and it is difficult to be sure of any circumstance at such a distance. Perhaps the witness will kindly inform us what were the circumstances which fixed this, no doubt one of many visits, on her mind?"

Elinor turned for the first time to the side from which the question came with a little movement of that impatience which was habitual to her, which three persons in that crowd recognised in a moment as characteristic. One of these was John Tatham, who had brought her to the court, and kept near that she might feel that she was not alone; the other was her son, of whose presence there nobody knew; the third, sat with his eyes cast down, and his arms folded on his breast, not looking at her, yet seeing every movement she made.

"It was a very simple circumstance," she said with the added spirit of that impetuous impulse: but then the hasty movement failed her, and she came back to herself and to a consciousness of the scene in which she stood. A sort of tremulous shiver came into her voice. She paused and then resumed, "There was a calendar hanging in the hall; it caught Mr. Compton's eye, and he pointed it out to me. It marked the 6th. He said, 'Just ten days——'"

Here her voice stopped altogether. She could say no more. And there was an answering pause throughout the whole crowded court, a holding of the general breath, the response to a note of passion seldom struck in such a place. Even in the cross-examination there was a pause.

"Till when? What was the other date referred to?"

"The sixteenth of September," she said in a voice that was scarcely audible to the crowd. She added still more low so that the judge curved his hand over his ear to hear her, "Our wedding-day."

"I regret to enter into private matters, Mrs. Compton, but I believe it is not a secret that your married life came to a—more rapid conclusion than could have been augured from such a beginning. May I ask what your reasons were for——"

But here the other counsel sprang to his feet, and the contention arose again. Such a question was not clearly permissible. And the prosecution was perfectly satisfied with the evidence. It narrowed the question by the production of this clear and unquestionable testimony—the gentleman whom it had been attempted to involve being thus placed out of the question, and all the statements of the previous witness about the moustache which he could not see, etc., set aside.

Philip, it may be supposed, paid little attention to this further discussion. His eyes and thoughts were fixed upon his mother, who for a minute or two stood motionless through it, as pale as ever, but with her head a little thrown back, facing, though not looking at, the circling lines of faces. Had she seen anything she must have seen the tall boy standing up as pale as she, following her movements with an unconscious repetition which was more than sympathy, never taking his gaze from her face.

And then presently her place was empty, and she was gone.

Philip was not aware how the discussion of the lawyers ended, but only that in a moment there was vacancy where his mother had been standing, and his gaze seemed thrown back to him by the blank where she had been. He was left in the midst of the crowd, which, after that one keen sensation, fell back upon the real trial with interest much less keen.



CHAPTER XLV.

Philip did not know how long he remained, almost paralysed, in the court, dazed in his mind, incapable of movement. He was in the centre of a long row of people, and to make his way out was difficult. He felt that the noise would call attention to him, and that he might be somehow identified—identified, as what? He did not know—his head was not clear enough to give any reason. When he came more to himself, and his eyes regained a little their power of vision, it seemed to him that everybody had stolen away. There was the judge, indeed, still sitting imperturbable, the jury restless in their box, the lawyers going on with their eternal quarrel over a bewildered witness, all puppets carrying on some unintelligible, wearisome, automaton process, contending, contending for ever about nothing. But all that had secured Philip's attention was gone. John Tatham's head was no longer visible under the witness-box; the ladies had disappeared from their elevated seats; the man with the opera-glass was gone. They were all gone, and the empty husks of a question which only concerned the comfort and life of the commonplace culprit in the dock were being turned over and over like chaff by the wind. And yet it was some time before poor young Pippo, shy of attracting attention, feeling some subtle change even in himself which he did not understand, afraid to have people look at him and divine him, knowing more of him perhaps than he himself knew, could make up his mind to move. He might have remained there till the court broke up but for the movement of some one beside him, who gathered up his hat and umbrella, and with some commotion pushed his way between the rows of seats. Philip followed, thankful of the opportunity, and, as it happened, the sensation of the day being over, many others followed too, and thus he got out into the curious, wondering daylight, which seemed to look him in the face, as if this Philip had never been seen by it before. That was the impression given him—that when he first came out the atmosphere quivered round him with a strange novelty, as if he were some other being, some one without a name, new to the world, new to himself. He did not seem sure that he would know his way home, and yet he did not call a passing hansom, as he would have done yesterday, with a schoolboy's pleasure in assuming a man's careless, easy ways. It is a long way from the Law Courts to Ebury Street, but it seemed a kind of satisfaction to be in motion, to walk on along the crowded streets. And, as a matter of fact, Philip did lose his way, and got himself entangled in a web of narrow streets and monotonous little openings, all so like each other that it took him a long time to extricate himself and find again the thread of a locality known to him. He did not know what he was to do when he got in. Should he find her there, in the little dingy drawing-room as usual, with the tea on the table? Would she receive him with her usual smile, and ask where he had been and what he had seen, and if the Musgraves had enjoyed it, exactly as if nothing had happened? Even this wonder was faint in Philip's mind, for the chief wonder to him was himself, and to find out how he had changed since the morning—what he was now, who he was? what were the relations to him of other people, of that other Philip Compton who had been seated in the court with the opera-glass, who had arrived at Windyhill to visit Elinor Dennistoun on the 6th of September, 1863, twenty years ago? Who was that man? and what was he, himself Philip Compton, of Lakeside, named Pippo, whom his mother had never once in all his life called by his real name?

To his great wonder, and yet almost relief, Philip found that his mother had not yet returned when he got to Ebury Street. "Mrs. Compton said as she would very likely be late. Can I get you some tea, sir? or, perhaps you haven't had your lunch? you're looking tired and worrited," said the landlady, who had known Pippo all his life. He consented to have tea, partly to fill up the time, and went up languidly to the deserted room, which looked so miserable and desert a place without her who put a soul into it and made it home. He did not know what to do with himself, poor boy, but sat down vacantly, and stared into empty space, seeing, wherever he turned, the rows of faces, the ladies making signs to each other, the red robes of the judge, the lawyers contending, and that motionless pale figure in the witness-box. He shut his eyes and saw the whole scene, then opened them again, and still saw it—the dingy walls disappearing, the greyness of the afternoon giving a depth and distance to the limited space. Should he always carry it about with him wherever he went, the vision of that court, the shock of that revelation? And yet he did not yet know what the revelation was; the confusion in his mind was too great, and the dust and mist that rose up about him as all the old building of his life crumbled and fell away.

"I'm sure as it's that nasty trial, sir, as has been turning your mamma all out of her usual ways," said the landlady, appearing with her tray.

"Oh, the trial! Did you know about the trial?" said Philip.

"Not, Mr. Pippo, as ever she mentioned it to me. Mrs. Compton is a lady as isn't that confidential, though always an affable lady, and not a bit proud; but when you've known folks for years and years, and take an interest, and put this and that together—— Dear, dear, I hope as you don't think it's taking a liberty. It's more kindness nor curiosity, and I hope as you won't mention it to your mamma."

Pippo shook his head and waved his hand, at once to satisfy the woman and dismiss her if possible; but this was not so easy to do.