delicate, rather blighted child, demanding all the mother's care.

"So that makes your responsibility greater, as it were, about the boy,
doesn't it?" said Mrs. Pallant.

"Greater? I'm sure I don't know."

"Why if the girl's life's uncertain he may become, some moment, all the
mother has. So that being in your hands--"

"Oh I shall keep him alive, I suppose, if you mean that," I returned.

"Well, WE won't kill him, shall we, Linda?" my friend went on with a
laugh.

"I don't know--perhaps we shall!" smiled the girl.



II

I called on them the next at their lodgings, the modesty of which was
enhanced by a hundred pretty feminine devices--flowers and photographs
and portable knick-knacks and a hired piano and morsels of old brocade
flung over angular sofas. I took them to drive; I met them again at the
Kursaal; I arranged that we should dine together, after the Homburg
fashion, at the same table d'hote; and during several days this revived
familiar intercourse continued, imitating intimacy if not quite
achieving it. I was pleased, as my companions passed the time for me and
the conditions of our life were soothing--the feeling of summer and