Part 3

"Hush, hush! Oh, indeed, you must be quiet! See, we are nearly home."

He seized her hand, not to be quelled this time, and, bending low over it, kissed it. She did not draw it away, but watched him with a curious, pained smile. He looked up in her face, his own glowing with excitement. He righted himself to his full stature and, from that stooping, kissed her on the lips.

"Oh, you silly boy!" she moaned, and found herself alone in the meadow. He had gone swiftly back by the way they had come, and she went on to her home.

"Well, the boy saw you home?" asked Mr. Mortimer when he arrived half an hour later.

"Yes," she said, raising her head from the cushions of the sofa on which he found her lying.

"I supposed so, but he didn't come into the smoking-room when he got back. Went straight to bed, I expect. He's a nice-mannered young fellow, isn't he?"

"Oh, very!" said Mrs. Mortimer.

II.

Mr. Mortimer had never been so looked after, cosseted, and comforted for his early start as the next morning, nor the children found their mother so patient and affectionate. She was in an abasement of shame and disgust at herself, and quite unable to treat her transgression lightly. That he was a boy and she--not a girl--seemed to charge her with his as well as her own sins, and, besides this moral aggravation, entailed a lower anxiety as to his discretion and secrecy that drove her half mad with worry. Suppose he should boast of it! Or, if he were not bad enough for that, only suppose he should be carried away into carelessness about it! He had nothing to fear worse than what he would call "a wigging" and perhaps summary dismissal to a tutor's: she had more at risk than she could bear to think of. Probably, by now, he recognized his foolishness, and laughed at himself and her. This thought made her no happier, for men may do all that--and yet, very often, they do not stop.

She had to go to a party at the Vicarage in the afternoon. Harry would be sure to be there, and, with a conflict of feeling finding expression in her acts, she protected herself by taking all the children, while she inconsistently dressed herself in her most youthful and coquettish costume. She found herself almost grudging Johnnie his rapidly increasing inches, even while she relied on him for an assertion of her position as a matron. For the folly of last night was to be over and done with, and her acquaintance with Harry Sterling to return to its only possible sane basis; that she was resolved on, but she wanted Harry honestly--even keenly--to regret her determination.

He was talking to Maudie Sinclair when she arrived; he took off his hat, but did not allow his eyes to meet hers. She gathered her children round her, and sat down among the chaperons. Mrs. Sterling came and talked to her; divining a sympathy, the good mother had much to say of her son, of her hopes and her fears for him; so many dangers beset young men, especially if they were attractive, like Harry; there were debts, idleness, fast men, and--worst of all--there were designing women, ready to impose on and ruin the innocence of youth.

"He's been such a good boy till now," said Mrs. Sterling, "but, of course, his father and I feel anxious. If we could only keep him here, out of harm's way, under our own eyes!"

Mrs. Mortimer murmured consolation.

"How kind of you! And your influence is so good for him. He thinks such a lot of you, Hilda."

Mrs. Mortimer, tried too hard, rose and strolled away. Harry's set seemed to end almost directly, and a moment later he was shaking hands with her, still keeping his eyes away from hers. She made her grasp cold and inanimate, and he divined the displeasure she meant to indicate.

"You must go and play again," she said, "or talk to the girls. You mustn't come and talk to me."

"Why not! How can I help it--now?"

The laughing at her and himself had evidently not come, but, bad as that would have been to bear, his tone threatened something worse.

"Don't," she answered sharply. "I'm very angry. You were very unkind and--and ungentlemanly last night."

He flushed crimson.

"Didn't you like it?" he asked, with the terrible simplicity of his youth.

For all her trouble, she had to bite her lip to hide a smile. What a question to ask--just in so many words!

"It was very, very wicked, and, of course, I didn't like it," she answered. "Oh, Harry! don't you know how wicked it was?"

"Oh, yes! I know that, of course," said he, picking at the straw of his hat, which he was carrying in his hand.

"Well, then!" she said.

"I couldn't help it."

"You must help it. Oh, don't you know--oh, it's absurd! I'm years older than you."

"You looked so--so awfully pretty."