Sir George Tressady, vol 2 | Page 3

said I had much better do what suited me, and take care. Besides, what do any of them know? They all confess they're just fumbling about. Now, surgery, of course--that's different. Battye"--Battye was Lady Tressady's ordinary medical adviser--"doesn't believe all the other man said. I knew he wouldn't. And as for making an invalid of me, he sees, of course, that it would kill me at once. There, my dear George, don't make too much of it. I think I was a fool to tell you."
And Lady Tressady struggled to a sitting position, looking at her son with a certain hostility. The frown on her white face showed that she was already angry with him for his emotion--this rare emotion, that she had never yet been able to rouse in him.
He could only implore her to be guided by her doctor--to rest, to give up at least some of the mill-round of her London life, if she would not go abroad. Lady Tressady listened to him with increasing obstinacy and excitability.
"I tell you I know best!" she said, passionately, at last. "Don't go on like this--it worries me. Now, look here--"
She turned upon him with emphasis.
"Promise me not to tell Letty a word of this. Nobody shall know--she least of all. I shall do just as usual. In fact, I expect a very gay season. Three 'drums' this afternoon and a dinner-party--it doesn't look as though I were quite forgotten yet, though Letty does think me an old fogey!"
She smiled at him with a ghastly mixture of defiance and conceit. The old age in her pinched face, fighting with the rouged cheeks and the gaiety of her fanciful dress, was pitiful.
"Promise," she said. "Not a word--to her!"
George promised, in much distress. While he was speaking she had a slight return of pain, and was obliged to submit to lie down again.
"At least," he urged, "don't go out to-day. Give yourself a rest. Shall I go back, and ask Letty to come round to tea?"
Lady Tressady made a face like a spoilt child.
"I don't think she'll come," she said. "Of course, I know from the first she took an ungodly dislike to me. Though, if it hadn't been for me--Well, never mind! Yes, you can ask her, George--do! I'll wait and see if she comes. If she comes, perhaps I'll stay in. It would amuse me to hear what she has been doing. I'll behave quite nicely--there!"
And, taking up her fan, Lady Tressady lightly tapped her son's hand with it in her most characteristic manner.
He rose, seeing from the clock that he should only just have time to drive quickly back to Letty if he was to be at the House in time for an appointment with a constituent, which had been arranged for one o'clock.
"I will send Justine to you as I go out," he said, taking up his hat, "and I shall hear of you from Letty this evening."
Lady Tressady said nothing. Her eyes, bright with some inner excitement, watched him as he looked for his stick. Suddenly she said, "George! kiss me!"
Her tone was unsteady. Infinitely touched and bewildered, the young man approached her, and, kneeling down again beside her, took her in his arms. He felt a quick sobbing breath pass through her; then she pushed him lightly away, and, putting up the slim, pink-nailed hand of which she was so proud, she patted him on the cheek.
"There--go along! I don't like that coat of yours, you know. I told you so the other day. If your figure weren't so good, you'd positively look badly dressed in it. You should try another man."
Tressady hailed a hansom outside, and drove back to Brook Street. On the way his eyes saw little of the crowded streets. So far, he had had no personal experience of death. His father had died suddenly while he was at Oxford, and he had lost no other near relation or friend. Strange! this grave, sudden sense that all was changed, that his careless, half-contemptuous affection for his mother could never again be what it had been. Supposing, indeed, her story was all true! But in the case of a character like Lady Tressady's, there are for long, recurrent, involuntary scepticisms on the part of the bystander. It seems impossible, unfitting, to grant to such persons le beau r?le they claim. It outrages a certain ideal instinct, even, to be asked to believe that they too can yield, in their measure, precisely the same tragic stuff as the hero or the saint.
Letty was at home, just about to share her lunch with Harding Watton, who had dropped in. Hearing her husband's voice, she came out to the stairhead to speak to him.
But after a minute or two George dashed down again to his study, that