'll not have
sneaking, and confabulations in dark corners. And make that little
eunuch Bellamy understand it, or I'll pitch him out of window, neck and
crop, the next time he sets foot in this house!"

Sophy felt that he was to a certain extent justified in his anger. She
promised for Bellamy that he would say things directly to Cecil himself
in future.

Then she went away to the nursery for solace, sick at heart, sick at
brain, sick in spirit.

To her amazement she found Lady Wychcote there, seated in a chair before
the fire with Bobby on her knee. He was babbling excitedly, and his
grandmother was smiling at him with that appraising look in her eyes
which Sophy so resented. The boy tried to snap his soft, curled fingers
at his mother as soon as he caught sight of her, in his eagerness to
have her come near.

"Muvvah!" he cried. "Oh, _Muvvah_! Ganny div Bobby gee-gee!"

"Yes. I'm going to give him a Shelty," said Lady Wychcote. "It's high
time the boy learned how to ride."

"It's very good of you," said Sophy, pleased for the child's delight.
"But he's only two, you know."

"Quite old enough," Lady Wychcote said firmly. "I wonder you never
thought of it yourself."

"We couldn't have afforded it in town," Sophy said with some stiffness.
Her mother-in-law's tone was supercilious.

"Pf!" said Lady Wychcote. "You know Gerald has a _faible_ for you. You'd
only to hint it."

Sophy reddened.

"I don't hint for things," she said still more stiffly.

"Well, well! Don't let's tiff over it," Lady Wychcote retorted loftily.
"We're not congenial, but I've taken a fancy to my grandson. Let that
mollify you."

Sophy gazed out at the bleared landscape, that looked wavy like a bad
print thus seen through the streaming window-pane. She realised in that
moment that unhappiness filled her to the least crevice of her being.
She needed kindness so bitterly, and here as her only companion was this
frigid, acrid woman who disliked her for having married Cecil, and
grudged her Gerald's friendship. Then she glanced back at the familiar
group before the fire. Bobby was leaning forward against the beautifully
corseted figure of his grandparent, eagerly demanding to know more about
his "gee-gee."

A terror seized Sophy--a sort of blind fear. Was this the beginning of a
new misery? Would Lady Wychcote try to get her son from her? Was she
laying plans behind that smooth, narrow brow? Insidiously, little by
little, as the dreary y