TIMES."

"Was Paul there?"

"Yes; and Charles was talking to him about Stocks and
Shares, and he looked frightened."

By slight indications the sisters could convey much to
each other. Margaret saw horror latent in the scene, and
Helen's next remark did not surprise her.

"Somehow, when that kind of man looks frightened it is
too awful. It is all right for us to be frightened, or for
men of another sort--father, for instance; but for men like
that! When I saw all the others so placid, and Paul mad
with terror in case I said the wrong thing, I felt for a
moment that the whole Wilcox family was a fraud, just a wall
of newspapers and motor-cars and golf-clubs, and that if it
fell I should find nothing behind it but panic and
emptiness. "

"I don't think that. The Wilcoxes struck me as being
genuine people, particularly the wife."

"No, I don't really think that. But Paul was so
broad-shouldered; all kinds of extraordinary things made it
worse, and I knew that it would never do--never. I said to
him after breakfast, when the others were practising
strokes, 'We rather lost our heads,' and he looked better at
once, though frightfully ashamed. He began a speech about