vering at hand.

"Mrs. Pembrose, my lady, came here this afternoon," he said, when he had
secured her attention.

"Came here."

"She asked for you, my lady, and when I told her you were not at 'ome,
she asked if she might see Sir Isaac."

"And did she?"

"Sir Isaac saw her, my lady. They 'ad tea in the study."

"I wish I had been at home to see her," said Lady Harman, after a brief
interval of reflection.

She took her two letters and turned to the staircase. They were still in
her hand when presently she came into her husband's study. "I don't want
a light," he said, as she put out her hand to the electric switch. His
voice had a note of discontent, but he was sitting in the armchair
against the window so that she could not see his features.

"How are you feeling this afternoon?" she asked.

"I'm feeling all right," he answered testily. He seemed to dislike
inquiries after his health almost as much as he disliked neglect.

She came and stood by him and looked out from the dusk of the room into
the garden darkening under a red-barred sky. "There is fresh trouble
between Mrs. Pembrose and the girls," she said.

"She's been telling me about it."

"She's been here?"

"Pretty nearly an hour," said Sir Isaac.

Lady Harman tried to imagine that hour's interview on the spur of the
moment and failed. She came to her immediate business. "I think," she
said, "that she has been--high-handed...."

"You would," said Sir Isaac after an interval.

His tone was hostile, so hostile that it startled her.

"Don't you?"

He shook his head. "My idees and your idees--or anyhow the idees you've
got hold of--somewhere--somehow----I don't know where you _get_ your
idees. We haven't got the same idees, anyhow. You got to keep order in
these places--anyhow...."

She perceived that she was in face of a prepared position. "I don't
think," she threw out, "that she does keep order. She represses--and
irritates. She gets an idea that certain girls are against her...."

"And you get an idea she's against certain girls...."

"Practically she expels them. She has in fact just turned one out into
the street."

"You got to expel 'em. You got to. You can't run these places on sugar
and water. There's a sort of girl, a sort of man, who makes trouble.
There's a sort makes strikes, makes mischief, gets up grievances. You
got to get rid of 'em somehow. You got to be practical somewhere. You
can't go running these places on a lot of