d when, as occasionally she
tried to do, she reasoned to herself about it, her mind seemed paralysed
and utterly refused to make plans of any kind. So, twisting to her own
purposes, as people do, the saying about the evil of the day being unto
itself sufficient, she let time slip away unremarked and spring came.

It was a cold rainy season that year, with chill dark mornings and
flickerings of pale sunshine later on.

People talked much about the weather, and pretty women shivered in their
light finery. Tommy, who went home for a fortnight in April, reported
that things in the country were deplorable.

"Everyone has colds, and Mr. Smith says there is diphtheria at Spinny
Major. Green is disgusted, and from what I can gather from his cheery
reports, everyone is going to be ruined by agricultural depression. The
Mother of Hundreds has nine new pups--rather good ones."

This was at the end of April, and Lord Kingsmead was coiled in a big
chair in his sister's room in Pont Street. Mr. Babington, his tutor, had
just gone for a walk, poor man. Tommy's attitude to him had from the
first been one of polite tolerance, and Mr. Babington's bump of humour
being imperfectly developed, he in return regarded his charge with
something like horror.

A boy of twelve, who knew only the very first principles of Latin (Mr.
Babington was number three, the other two having proved unsatisfactory
to their employer-pupil), and knew the multiplication table only up to
"eight-times," disturbed his tidy little mind. There was, moreover, a
youth in Sydenham who clamoured for Mr. Babington, and who was after
that much-tried young Oxonian's heart. But Mr. Babington stayed on,
for--there was Brigit, and in the evenings the tutor locked his door,
smoked asthma cigarettes, and wrote sonnets by the yard to the
Enchantress.

Tommy, of course, had at once perceived the first shoots of the hapless
young man's baby passion as it sprang up in his heart--which did not
make it easier to bear, but still Mr. Babington stayed on.

"He'll never go, Bick," complained Tommy that afternoon, after his
remarks on Kingsmead. "I even tried smoking the other day, but he had a
handkerchief of yours that you left on the hall table, and was so bucked
that he barely noticed my iniquity. He _is_ a poisonous person!"

"Yes, I certainly preferred Mr. Catt--but you didn't like him either."

"How could anyone like a fellow named Catt? I nearly choked every time I
had to sp