sima verba_," said Flamby.

Don, who was drying his eyes, turned slowly and regarded her. Flamby
blushed rosily.

"What did you say?" asked Don.

"Nothing. I was thinking out loud."

"Do you habitually think in Latin?"

"No. It was just a trick of dad's. I wish you could have heard him swear
in Latin."

Don's eyes began to sparkle again. "No doubt I should have found the
experience of great educational value," he said; "but did he often swear
in Latin?"

"Not often; only when he was _very_ drunk."

"What was his favourite tongue when he was merely moderately so?"

Flamby's expression underwent a faint change, and looking down she bit
her under-lip. Instantly Don saw that he had wounded her, and he cursed
the clumsiness, of which Paul could never have been guilty, that had led
him to touch this girl's acute sensibilities. She was bewildering, of
course, and he realised that he must step warily in future. He reached
across and grasped her other hand hard. "Please forgive me," he said.
"No man had better reason for loving your father than I."

Flamby looked up at him doubtfully, read sincerity in the grey eyes, and
smiled again at once. "_He_ wouldn't have minded a bit," she explained,
"but I'm only a woman after all, and women are daft."

"I cannot allow you to be a woman yet, Flamby. You are only a girl, and
I want you to think of me----"

Flamby's pretty lips assumed a mischievous curve and a tiny dimple
appeared in her cheek. "Don't say as a big brother," she cried, "or you
will make me feel like a penny novelette!"

"I cannot believe that you ever read a penny novelette."

"No; I didn't. But mother read them, and dad used to tear pages out to
light his pipe before mother had finished. Then she would explain the
plot to me up to the torn pages, and we would try to work out what had
happened to the girl in the missing parts."

"A delightful literary exercise. And was the principal character always
a girl?"

"Always a girl--yes; a poor girl cast upon the world; very often a poor
governess."

"And she had two suitors."

"Yes. Sometimes three. She seemed inclined to marry the wrong one, but
mother always read the end first to make sure it came out all right. I
never knew one that didn't."

"No; it would have been too daring for publication. So your mother read
these stories? Romance is indeed a hardy shrub."

The cab drew up before the door of The Hostel, a low, half-timbered
building upon Jacobe