-in. Investigation
brought to light the fact that the snake had been surreptitiously
purchased by Master Phil from a Covent Garden dealer. He had kept it in
a box in the stables, but, finding it torpid with cold one night, he had
put it in his aunt's work-basket for the sake of the warmth. When Miss
Heredith recovered from her hysterics she had seen to it that Phil was
packed off to school almost as quickly as the snake was packed off to
the Zoological Gardens.

After Phil's college days his father's influence had obtained for him a
Government post which was to be the forerunnner of a diplomatic career,
if Phil cared for it. That was before the war, which upset so many
plans. In his capacity of assistant departmental secretary, Phil had
nothing particular to do, and an ample allowance from his father to
spend in his leisure time. Many young men in these circumstances--thrown
on their own resources in London with plenty of money to spend--would
have lost no time in "going wrong," but Phil's temperament preserved him
from those temptations which so many young well-born men find
irresistible. He had a disdain for the stage, he did not care for chorus
girls, he disliked horse-racing, and he did not drink.

He sought distractions in another way, and rumours of those distractions
filtered in due course down to his family home in Sussex. It was
whispered that Phil was "queer"--that his old passion for petting
reptiles and lower animal forms had merely been diverted into another
channel. He had become a Socialist, and had been seen consorting with
the lower orders at East End meetings with other people sufficiently
respectable to have known better. It was even stated that he had
supported an Irish revolutionary countess (who had discovered the first
Socialist in Jesus Christ, and wanted to disestablish the Church of
England) by "taking the chair" for her when she announced these tenets
to the rabble in Hyde Park one fine Sunday afternoon. A Heredith a
socialist and nonconformist! These were bitter blows to Miss Heredith, a
woman soaked in family and Church tradition, but she bore the shock with
uncompromising front, and was able to make the shortcomings of Phil's
mother a vicarious sacrifice for the misdeeds of the son.

But the bitterest blow to Miss Heredith's family pride was the news of
Phil's marriage. Till then she had pinned her faith, like a wise woman,
in the reformative influence of a good marriage. Although a spins