id. You can take my word for it, but there
are very few women who could have managed him."

"Oh yes," said Margaret distractedly.

"Bowling him over with those long sentences was what fetched me," cried
Evie.

"Yes, indeed," chuckled her father; "all that part about 'mechanical
cheerfulness'--oh, fine!"

"I'm very sorry," said Margaret, collecting herself. "He's a nice
creature really. I cannot think what set him off. It has been most
unpleasant for you."

"Oh, I didn't mind." Then he changed his mood. He asked if he might
speak as an old friend, and, permission given, said: "Oughtn't you
really to be more careful?"

Margaret laughed, though her thoughts still strayed after Helen. "Do you
realise that it's all your fault?" she said. "You're responsible."

"I?"

"This is the young man whom we were to warn against the Porphyrion. We
warn him, and--look!"

Mr. Wilcox was annoyed. "I hardly consider that a fair deduction," he
said.

"Obviously unfair," said Margaret. "I was only thinking how tangled
things are. It's our fault mostly--neither yours nor his."

"Not his?"

"No."

"Miss Schlegel, you are too kind."

"Yes, indeed," nodded Evie, a little contemptuously.

"You behave much too well to people, and then they impose on you. I know
the world and that type of man, and as soon as I entered the room I saw
you had not been treating him properly. You must keep that type at a
distance. Otherwise they forget themselves. Sad, but true. They aren't
our sort, and one must face the fact."

"Ye--es."

"Do admit that we should never have had the outburst if he was a
gentleman."

"I admit it willingly," said Margaret, who was pacing up and down the
room. "A gentleman would have kept his suspicions to himself."

Mr. Wilcox watched her with a vague uneasiness.

"What did he suspect you of?"

"Of wanting to make money out of him."

"Intolerable brute! But how were you to benefit?"

"Exactly. How indeed! Just horrible, corroding suspicion. One touch of
thought or of goodwill would have brushed it away. Just the senseless
fear that does make men intolerable brutes."

"I come back to my original point. You ought to be more careful, Miss
Schlegel. Your servants ought to have orders not to let such people in."

She turned to him frankly. "Let me explain exactly why we like this man,
and want to see him again."

"That's your clever way of talking. I shall never believe you like him."

"I do. Firstly, bec