Sir Wilfrid
approached the still standing and distressed Marcia. Drawing her hand
within his arm, he patted it kindly.
"We can't persuade your mother, my dear. Suppose you try."
"Mother, you can't insist on Arthur's going through with the meeting if he
doesn't wish to!" said Marcia, with animation. "Do let him give it up! It
would be so easy to postpone it."
Lady Coryston turned upon her.
"Everything is easy in your eyes, no doubt, Marcia, except that he should
do his duty, and spare my feelings! As a matter of fact you know perfectly
well that Arthur has always allowed me to arrange these things for him."
"I don't mean, mother, to do so in future!" said Arthur, resolutely turning
upon her. "You _must_ leave me to manage my own life and my own
affairs."
Lady Coryston's features quivered in her long bony face. As she sat near
the window, on a high chair, fully illumined, in a black velvet dress,
long-waisted, and with a kind of stand-up ruffle at the throat, she was
amazingly Queen Bess. James, who was always conscious of the likeness,
could almost have expected her to rise and say in the famous words of the
Queen to Cecil--"Little man, little man, your father durst not have said
'must' to me!"
But instead she threw her son a look of furious contempt, with the words:
"You have been glad enough of my help, Arthur, in the past; you have never
been able indeed to do without it.
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