ided that that must be ignored.

"I care more for those hostels than I care for anything--anything else
in the world," she told him. "I want them to work--I want them to
succeed.... And then----"

He listened in sceptical silence.

"Mr. Brumley is nothing to me but a helper. He----How can you imagine,
Isaac----? _I!_ How can you dare? To suggest----!"

"Very well," said Sir Isaac and reflected and made his old familiar
sound with his teeth. "Run the hostels without him, Elly," he
propounded. "Then I'll believe."

She perceived that suddenly she was faced by a test or a bargain. In the
background of her mind the figure of Mr. Brumley, as she had seen him
last, in brown and with a tie rather to one side, protested vainly. She
did what she could for him on the spur of the moment. "But," she said,
"he's so helpful. He's so--harmless."

"That's as may be," said Sir Isaac and breathed heavily.

"How can one suddenly turn on a friend?"

"I don't see that you ever wanted a friend," said Sir Isaac.

"He's been so good. It isn't reasonable, Isaac. When anyone
has--_slaved_."

"I don't say he isn't a good sort of chap," said Sir Isaac, with that
same note of almost superhuman rationality, "only--he isn't going to run
my hostels."

"But what do you mean, Isaac?"

"I mean you got to choose."

He waited as if he expected her to speak and then went on.

"What it comes to is this, Elly, I'm about sick of that chap. I'm sick
of him." He paused for a moment because his breath was short. "If you go
on with the hostels he's--Phew--got to mizzle. _Then_--I don't mind--if
you want that girl Burnet brought back in triumph.... It'll make Mrs.
Pembrose chuck the whole blessed show, you know, but I say--I don't
mind.... Only in that case, I don't want to see or hear--or hear
about--Phew--or hear about your Mr. Brumley again. And I don't want you
to, either.... I'm being pretty reasonable and pretty patient over this,
with people--people--talking right and left. Still,--there's a limit....
You've been going on--if I didn't know you were an innocent--in a way
... I don't want to talk about that. There you are, Elly."

It seemed to her that she had always expected this to happen. But
however much she had expected it to happen she was still quite
unprepared with any course of action. She wanted with an equal want of
limitation to keep both Mr. Brumley and her hostels.

"But Isaac," she said. "What do you suspect? What do you thin