ghtn't to do
this."

"Do what?"

"This. Impositions. For my boys."

She raised her eyebrows, then knitted them momentarily, and looked at
him. "Are _you_ Mr. Lewisham?" she asked with an affectation of entire
ignorance and discovery.

She knew him perfectly well, which was one reason why she was writing
the imposition, but pretending not to know gave her something to say.

Mr. Lewisham nodded.

"Of all people! Then"--frankly--"you have just found me out."

"I am afraid I have," said Lewisham. "I am afraid I _have_ found you
out."

They looked at one another for the next move. She decided to plead in
extenuation.

"Teddy Frobisher is my cousin. I know it's very wrong, but he seemed
to have such a lot to do and to be in _such_ trouble. And I had
nothing to do. In fact, it was _I_ who offered...."

She stopped and looked at him. She seemed to consider her remark
complete.

That meeting of the eyes had an oddly disconcerting quality. He tried
to keep to the business of the imposition. "You ought not to have done
that," he said, encountering her steadfastly.

She looked down and then into his face again. "No," she said. "I
suppose I ought not to. I'm very sorry."

Her looking down and up again produced another unreasonable effect. It
seemed to Lewisham that they were discussing something quite other
than the topic of their conversation; a persuasion patently absurd and
only to be accounted for by the general disorder of his faculties. He
made a serious attempt to keep his footing of reproof.

"I should have detected the writing, you know."

"Of course you would. It was very wrong of me to persuade him. But I
did--I assure you. He seemed in such trouble. And I thought--"

She made another break, and there was a faint deepening of colour in
her cheeks. Suddenly, stupidly, his own adolescent cheeks began to
glow. It became necessary to banish that sense of a duplicate topic
forthwith.

"I can assure you," he said, now very earnestly, "I never give a
punishment, never, unless it is merited. I make that a rule.
I--er--_always_ make that a rule. I am very careful indeed."

"I am really sorry," she interrupted with frank contrition. "It _was_
silly of me."

Lewisham felt unaccountably sorry she should have to apologise, and he
spoke at once with the idea of checking the reddening of his face. "I
don't think _that_," he said with a sort of belated alacrity. "Really,
it was kind of you, you know--very kind