," Cecilia muttered.

"He makes about one and tenpence a day by selling papers. The back-room
on that floor they let, of course, to your little model, Aunt B."

"She is not my model now."

There was a silence such as falls when no one knows how far the matter
mentioned is safe to, touch on. Thyme proceeded with her report.

"Her room's much the best in the house; it's airy, and it looks out over
someone's garden. I suppose she stays there because it's so cheap. The
Hughs' rooms are---" She stopped, wrinkling her straight nose.

"So that's the household," said Hilary. "Two married couples, one young
man, one young girl"--his eyes travelled from one to another of the two
married couples, the young man, and the young girl, collected in this
room--"and one old man," he added softly.

"Not quite the sort of place for you to go poking about in, Thyme,"
Stephen said ironically. "Do you think so, Martin?"

"Why not?"

Stephen raised his brows, and glanced towards his wife. Her face was
dubious, a little scared. There was a silence. Then Bianca spoke:

"Well?" That word, like nearly all her speeches, seemed rather to
disconcert her hearers.

"So Hughs ill-treats her?" said Hilary.

"She says so," replied Cecilia--"at least, that's what I understood. Of
course, I don't know any details."

"She had better get rid of him, I should think," Bianca murmured.

Out of the silence that followed Thyme's clear voice was heard saying:

"She can't get a divorce; she could get a separation."

Cecilia rose uneasily. These words concreted suddenly a wealth of
half-acknowledged doubts about her little daughter. This came of letting
her hear people talk, and go about with Martin! She might even have been
listening to her grandfather--such a thought was most disturbing. And,
afraid, on the one hand, of gainsaying the liberty of speech, and, on the
other, of seeming to approve her daughter's knowledge of the world, she
looked at her husband.

But Stephen did not speak, feeling, no doubt, that to pursue the subject
would be either to court an ethical, even an abstract, disquisition, and
this one did not do in anybody's presence, much less one's wife's or
daughter's; or to touch on sordid facts of doubtful character, which was
equally distasteful in the circumstances. He, too, however, was uneasy
that Thyme should know so much.

The dusk was gathering outside; the fire threw a flickering light,
fitfully outlining