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Mrs St. George had neither the magnanimity nor the wisdom of a certain good friend of hers who—when an only son got himself engaged to a hospital nurse—rang up the girl, “my deared” her, and asked her to lunch.

She had viewed the war from a distance, and yet she had done her duty by the war, short of encouraging her son to rush over yonder into the bloody reality of it. In a sense she had made the war her own, and allowed it to give expression to a number of her prejudices. She had a capable, cold head, a passion for putting people and things in order, and for keeping them in order; she looked well on a platform and could speak with chilly reasonableness.

But the spirit of her activities was repressive, the prevention of this, and the prevention of that. There were all sorts of things that she would have liked to repress, anything that had the smell of sex, of impulse, of animal naturalness. Had she had her way she would have prohibited everything that tended to raise life’s temperature, the whisky distilleries and the breweries, the night-clubs, the music-halls, the picture-theatres. She would have made Piccadilly Circus as chaste and chilly as the North Pole.

On that day in April she returned to No. 77 Cardigan Square about half-past twelve. She walked, very properly having laid up her car and sent her chauffeur to join the Mechanical Transport section of the A.S.C. She had been presiding on some committee or other that dealt efficiently with the herd’s inefficiencies.

That was Mrs St. George’s misfortune. It was not what she did, but the way she did it, and why she did it, that put her social pies and puddings into cold storage. No doubt this fool world would be the better for being ruled by a dictatorship of the biological mind, by a wisdom that is both kind and ruthless and impartial. Mrs St. George was not impartial. She objected to certain other women giving birth to babies,—but also she had tried to keep her son at home.

She trod slowly up the three very white steps, and slipped her latchkey into the big room door. Cummins met her in the hall, a mutely hostile Cummins.

“Is Mr Alex in?”

“No, madam.”

Mrs St. George had not seen her son that morning. He had breakfasted early and had disappeared. No doubt he had felt thoroughly ashamed of himself after the lapse of yesterday, and to Mrs St. George it seemed quite proper that Alex should be feeling a little shy of her.

“Lunch at one, Cummins.”

“Yes, madam.”

“I expect Mr Alex back to lunch. The Canteen Committee meets here at three.”

“Very good, madam.”

“We shall use the dining-room. Have the chairs arranged round the table.”

She went upstairs and sat down at her desk. This desk was a war product. She was a woman of affairs, and she kept this desk and her affairs in perfect order. One recess was full of neat little notebooks nicely labelled “Canteen”—“Prisoners of War”—“Care of Men on Leave”—“Married Women”—“Allowances”—“Vigilance”. She had some notes to make, and withdrawing one of the little books, she opened it and made her entries, and returning it to its place in the recess, she sat and looked out of the window. Yes, no doubt Alex was feeling seriously ashamed. No doubt he would come back and apologize, sit up like a good dog, and wave his paws in the air. It was abominable that he should have to go out there to France. He really was not fit for it. If his own mother did not know that, who could know it? But, then, after all, she could congratulate herself on the fact that Alex had not got mixed up with women or made one of those disastrous war marriages. Marriage? O, yes, some day, but she hoped to be able to select the girl for him. But—why marriage? Why should Alex marry? He was dependent on her. He had left Oxford to join the army. He had no profession; he was not trained to earn an income. She allowed him five hundred a year. She could allow him a thousand. But if he married—? Or wanted to marry? And suddenly she drifted off into what was for her strange and dubious speculation. She wanted to keep Alex under her hand, much as she kept this desk of hers. She could not see anything in marriage that could make him half so comfortable as he could be in No. 77 Cardigan Square. She knew quite well that she would try to keep him from getting married, just as she had tried to keep him in England. He had always been a tractable and obedient child.

Cummins broke her reverie.

“It is one o’clock, madam. Will you wait for Mr Alex?”

“I will wait a quarter of an hour, Cummins.”

But Mrs St. George lunched alone. Obviously, Alex’s contrition was serious and proper. She did not visualize him sitting at a little table in a Soho restaurant, opposite a compact little person with a glowing face and hair, and serious wise eyes. How could she? How could so much happen in one morning? Kitty, the daughter of Mrs Sarah who sold tobacco, cigarettes and cigars, was below Mrs St. George’s horizon.

Alex’s mother presided at her committee meeting, dismissed it, and sat down alone to a rationed tea. She was becoming slightly annoyed with the persistence of her son’s penitence, and when, about half-past five, she heard the front door close, she was in something of the mood of the woman who smacks her safely restored lost child just to give relief to her feelings. Alex should have returned to lunch. She had nicely timed the period that should be allowed him for contrition.

She listened. She expected him to come up at once to the drawing-room, but he did not come. She got up and rang the bell.

“Is that Mr Alex, Cummins?”

“Yes, madam.”

“Where is he?”

“In the dining-room, madam.”

She did not tell Cummins to inform Mr Alex that his mother was upstairs and expecting him. She sat down by the window and waited, and Cummins went below. She peeped into the dining-room and saw her “Lamb” standing at one of the windows overlooking the square. He did not hear her, and Cummins softly withdrew. It was possible that Mr Alex did not wish to hear anybody. When she had opened the door to him he had walked in with a “Hallo, Cummins”, and an air of supreme detachment. The pupils of his eyes had shown two little blurs of light. And Cummins had seen and wondered. She had said nothing, nor flicked the queer exultation from that dreaming face with a “Your mother is upstairs, sir. She expected you to lunch.” No, Cummins had withdrawn herself into further wonderings. Mr Alex had come back with a strange, new face. Another sort of intoxication but not the intoxication of yesterday!

Some twenty minutes passed before young St. George went upstairs. He hesitated outside the drawing-room door, and then suddenly turned the handle.

“Hallo, mater.”

They looked at each other. His mother received the impression that there was something different about him. He did not appear contrite; far from it; he looked rather happy.

“I expected you to lunch, Alex.”

“Sorry, mater. I met a friend, and we had lunch out.”

She waited. She expected him to say something apologetic about yesterday, but he did not look apologetic. He stood there staring out of the window; his eyes were very bright; a smile seemed to flicker about his lips.

She was annoyed. One of her favourite ways of opening a discussion was by saying—“I’m not an exacting woman.” She said—“I don’t think it was considerate of you—to leave me alone like this,—especially after what happened yesterday.”

He gave her a queer, quick look. He had been about to tell her something, but now she would not be told. He went nearer to the window. His face had grown suddenly and strangely stubborn.

“I’m sorry, mater, but you didn’t understand.”

And then he walked out of the room, and left her feeling icily offended. Not understand? She!