ll Mrs. Larne drove him
from the room, and Phyllis went on:

"He's more awful than anything you can think of. Was my dad at all like
him, Guardy? Mother's always so mysterious about him. I suppose you
knew him well."

Old Heythorp, incapable of confusion, answered stolidly:

"Not very."

"Who was his father? I don't believe even mother knows."

"Man about town in my day."

"Oh! your day must have been jolly. Did you wear peg-top trousers, and
dundreary's?"

Old Heythorp nodded.

"What larks! And I suppose you had lots of adventures with opera dancers
and gambling. The young men are all so good now." Her eyes rested on
Bob Pillin. "That young man's a perfect stick of goodness."

Old Heythorp grunted.

"You wouldn't know how good he was," Phyllis went on musingly, "unless
you'd sat next him in a tunnel. The other day he had his waist squeezed
and he simply sat still and did nothing. And then when the tunnel ended,
it was Jock after all, not me. His face was--Oh! ah! ha! ha! Ah! ha!"
She threw back her head, displaying all her white, round throat. Then
edging near, she whispered:

"He likes to pretend, of course, that he's fearfully lively. He's
promised to take mother and me to the theatre and supper afterwards.
Won't it be scrummy! Only, I haven't anything to go in."

Old Heythorp said: "What do you want? Irish poplin?"

Her mouth opened wide: "Oh! Guardy! Soft white satin!"

"How many yards'll go round you?"

"I should think about twelve. We could make it ourselves. You are a
chook!"

A scent of hair, like hay, enveloped him, her lips bobbed against his
nose,--and there came a feeling in his heart as when he rolled the first
sip of a special wine against his palate. This little house was a
rumty-too affair, her mother was a humbug, the boy a cheeky young rascal,
but there was a warmth here he never felt in that big house which had
been his wife's and was now his holy daughter's. And once more he
rejoiced at his day's work, and the success of his breach of trust, which
put some little ground beneath these young feet, in a hard and
unscrupulous world. Phyllis whispered in his ear:

"Guardy, do look; he will stare at me like that. Isn't it awful--like a
boiled rabbit?"

Bob Pillin, attentive to Mrs. Larne, was gazing with all his might over
her shoulder at the girl. The young man was moonstruck, that was clear!
There was something almost touching in the stare of those pupp