laintive, old-lettery sort of mood, you know."

She sighed a little. "Yes--I know." Then her eyelids flickered in a
parody of Kathleen's glance that Billy noted with a queer tenderness.
"Come and talk to me, Billy," she commanded. "I'm an early bird this
morning, and entitled to the very biggest and best-looking worm I can
find. You're only a worm, you know--we're all worms. Mr. Jukesbury
told me so last night, making an exception in my favour, for it
appears I'm an angel. He was amorously inclined last night, the tipsy
old fraud! It's shameless, Billy, the amount of money he gets out of
Miss Hugonin--for the deserving poor. Do you know, I rather fancy he
classes himself under that head? And I grant you he's poor enough--but
deserving!" Mrs. Saumarez snapped her fingers eloquently.

"Eh? Shark, eh?" queried Mr. Woods, in some discomfort.

She nodded. "He is as bad as Sarah Haggage," she informed him, "and
everybody knows what a bloodsucker she is. The Haggage is a disease,
Billy, that all rich women are exposed to--'more easily caught than
the pestilence, and the taker runs presently mad.' Depend upon it,
Billy, those two will have every penny they can get out of your
uncle's money."

"Peggy's so generous," he pleaded. "She wants to make everybody
happy--bring about a general millenium, you know."

"She pays dearly enough for her fancies," said Mrs. Saumarez, in a
hard voice. Then, after a little, she cried, suddenly: "Oh, Billy,
Billy, it shames me to think of how we lie to her, and toady to her,
and lead her on from one mad scheme to another!--all for the sake of
the money we can pilfer incidentally! We're all arrant hypocrites, you
know; I'm no better than the others, Billy--not a bit better. But
my husband left me so poor, and I had always been accustomed to the
pretty things of life, and I couldn't--I couldn't give them up, Billy.
I love them too dearly. So I lie, and toady, and write drivelling
talks about things I don't understand, for drivelling women to
listen to, and I still have the creature comforts of life. I pawn my
self-respect for them--that's all. Such a little price to pay, isn't
it, Billy?"

She spoke in a sort of frenzy. I dare say that at the outset she
wanted Mr. Woods to know the worst of her, knowing he could not fail
to discover it in time. Billy brought memories with him, you see; and
this shrewd, hard woman wanted, somehow, more than anything else in
the world, that he should think well