s assisted to breach the dam--Can't you
imagine the way the old cats of both sexes go on at her?--the dam
which held up female virtue, and that Society now will be drowned in
a flood of Free Love..."

_Vivie_: "Well! We'll give her a six months' trial here, and see if
our mix-up of advice in Law, Banking, Estate management,
Stock-and-share dealing, Divorce, Private Enquiries, probate, etc.,
does not prove _much_ more interesting than an illicit connection
with a hare-brained architect.... If she proves impossible you'll
pack her off and Vivie shall return and D.V. Williams go abroad....
Don't you think there is something that ought to win over Providence
in that happily chosen name? _D.V._ Williams? And my mother once
actually called herself 'Vavasour.'

"Well, then, barring accidents and the unforeseen, it's agreed I go
on my holiday next Saturday, to return never no more--perhaps--?--"

_Norie_ (with a sigh): "Yes!"

_Vivie_: "How's your mother?"

_Norie_: "Oh, as to her, I'm glad to say '_much_ better.' When I
can get away, after the new clerks and Beryl are installed and
everything is going smoothly, I shall take her to Switzerland, to a
deliciously quiet spot I know and nobody else knows up the
Goeschenenthal. The Continent won't be so hot for travelling if we
don't start till the end of August..."

_Vivie:_ "_Then_, dearest ... in case you don't come to the office
any more this week, I'll say good-bye--for--for some time..."

(They grip hands, they hesitate, then kiss each other on the cheek,
a very rare gesture on either's part--and separate with tears in
their eyes.)

The following Monday morning, Bertie Adams, combining in his
adolescent person the functions of office boy, junior clerk, and
general factotum, entered the outer office of Fraser and Warren and
found this letter on his desk:--

Fraser and Warren Midland Insurance Chambers,
General Inquiry Agents 88-90, Chancery Lane, W.C.
July 12, 1901.

DEAR BERTIE--

I want to prepare you for something. If you had been an
ordinary Office boy, I should not have bothered about you or
confided to you anything concerning the Firm. But you are by
now almost a clerk, and from the day I joined Miss Fraser in
this business, you have helped me more than you know--helped
me not only in my work, but to understand that there _can_
be good, true, decent-mi