"Didn't I tell you yesterday that I was coming to see the kids
tubbed?"

"I didn't think you meant it."

Mr. Bob Chater laughed. "Well, now you see that I did. I've been
looking forward to this all day."

Plainly she was perturbed. She said: "Mr. Chater, I really would
rather you did not, if you don't mind."

"Well, but I do mind, d'you see? I mind very much indeed. It would be
the bitterest disappointment."

His playfulness sat ill upon him. This was a stout young man, black-
eyed, dark-moustached, with a thick and heavy look about him.

She would not catch his mood. "I am sure when I ask you--"

"Well, you're jolly well wrong, you know," he laughed; "'cause I ain't
going."

Mary flushed slightly; moved to the hearthrug where sat David and
Angela, her small charges, watching, from their toys, the scene.

It occurred to Mr. Bob Chater that she was annoyed.

"I say, be decent to a fellow, Miss Humfray," he said. "Look here, I
hadn't seen the kids for two years when I came back yesterday. They