owe
you an explanation----"

"You don't owe me anything."

"All the same I'm going to give you one, so that next time
you'll think twice before you make any more of your venerable
European mistakes. It isn't every woman who'd know how to turn
them to your advantage. Perhaps you've seen what's wrong with Mr.
Bingham-Booker?"

He intimated that it was not practicable not to see. "If I may say
so, that makes it all the more unfitting----"

"That's all you know about it, Mr.----"

"Thesiger," he supplied.

"Mr. Thesiger. That boy had to be taken care of. He was killing
himself with drink before we came away. He'd had a shock to his
nerves, that's what brought it on. He was ordered to Europe as his
one chance. Somebody had to go with him, somebody he'd mind, and
there wasn't anybody he _did_ mind but me. I've known him since he
was a little thing in knickerbockers, that high. So we fixed it that
I was to go out and look after Binky, and Binky's mother--he's her
only son--was coming out too, to look after me. We cared for
appearances as much as you do. Well, the day before we sailed her
married daughter was taken sick, in the inconsiderate way that
married daughters have, and she couldn't go. And, do you know, there
wasn't a woman that could take her place. They were afraid, every
one of them, because they knew." She lowered her voice to utter it.
"It makes him mad."

"My dear lady, it was a job for a trained nurse."

"Trained nurse? They couldn't afford one. And we didn't want a
uniform hanging around and rubbing it into the poor boy and
everybody else that he was an incurable dipsomaniac."

"But you--_you_?"

"It was my job. You don't suppose I was going back on them?"

She faced him with it, and as he looked at her he took the measure
of her magnificence, her brilliant bravery.

"Going back on _him_? Poor Binky, he was so good and dear--except
for that. You never saw anything so cute. Up to all sorts of
monkey-shines and beautiful surprises. And then"--she smiled with a
tender irony--"he gave us _this_ surprise." From her face you could
not have gathered how far from beautiful his last had been. "I was
going to see that boy through if I had to go with him alone. I said
to myself there are always people around who'll think things,
whatever you do, but it doesn't matter what people who don't matter
think. And then--Mr. Tarbuck wouldn't let me go alone. He said I'd
have to have a man with me. A strong man.