think--let us be quite frank and comradelike with each other--I
can write to Mr. Wrybolt."--

"Tell me plainly," said Dyce, leaning towards her. "What was your
reason for giving way at once? You really think, don't you, that it
will be better for the boy?"

"Oh, how _could_ I think so, Mr. Lashmar! You _know_ what a high
opinion--"

"Exactly. I am quite ready to believe all that. But you will be
easier in mind with Len at school, taught in the ordinary way? Now
be honest--make an effort."

"I--perhaps--one has to think of a boy's future--"

The pale face was suffused with rose, and for a moment looked pretty
in its half-tearful embarrassment.

"Good. That's all right. We'll talk no more of it."

There was a brief silence. Dyce gazed slowly about him. His eyes
fell on nothing of particular value, nothing at all unusual in the
drawing-room of a small house of middle-suburb type. There were
autotypes and etchings and photographs; there was good, comfortable
furniture; the piano stood for more than mere ornament, as Mrs.
Woolstan had some skill in music. Iris's widowhood was of five
years' duration. At two and twenty she had married a
government-office clerk, a man nearly twice her age, exasperated by
routine and lack of advancement; on her part it was a marriage of