Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose.
Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense
of the danger of Sibyl's position. This young dandy who was
making love to her could mean her no good. He was a gentleman,
and he hated him for that, hated him through some curious
race-instinct for which he could not account, and which for that
reason was all the more dominant within him. He was conscious
also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature,
and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness.
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they
judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her,
something that he had brooded on for many months of silence.
A chance phrase that he had heard at the theatre, a whispered
sneer that had reached his ears one night as he waited at
the stage-door, had set loose a train of horrible thoughts.
He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a hunting-crop
across his face. His brows knit together into a wedgelike furrow,
and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip.

"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim," cried Sibyl,
"and I am making the most delightful plans for your future.
Do say something."

"What do you want me to say?"

"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us," she answered,
smiling at him.