silver in the shape
of cups, salvers, and engraved cigarette boxes than his modest staff of
servants could possibly keep clean. Over the mantelpiece hung the rules
of the Eton Society--under glass--with a trophy of canes decked with
light blue ribbons.

"It all looks pretty blatant, I'm afraid," said Coplestone
apologetically. "But I thought it would interest Ronnie and perhaps
hound him on to cut me out. And now----"

He stopped, and I hoped he was not going on, for this was when Ronnie
was at his worst and the second nurse had arrived.

"And now," said Coplestone, "the little sinner wants to be a dry-bob!"

I have not naturally a despondent temperament, but that night I for my
part was wondering whether Ronnie would ever go to Eton at all. The
delirious stage is always terrifying to the harrowed ignoramus watching
by the bed; it is almost worse if one is downstairs, trying not to
listen, yet doing little else, and without the nurse's calm voice and
experienced eyes to reassure one. That was how I spent that night. The
delirium had begun the night before, and been intermittent ever since.
But Coplestone was not terrified; he kept both nerve and spirits like a
hero. His thought for me brought a lump into my throat. Since I refused
to leave him, I must take the sofa; he would do splendidly in the chair.
He did better than I could have believed possible. He fell peacefully
asleep, and I sat up watching his great long limbs in the lowered
gas-light, but always listening while I watched.

Ronnie had not the makings of his father's fine physique. That was one
of the disquieting features of the case. He was fragile, excitable,
highly strung, as I felt his poor mother must have been before him. And
he was tragically like his hidden portrait of her. I saw it as often as
I was permitted a peep at Ronnie. What had she done amiss before she
died? That was perhaps the chief thing I wanted to know about her, but
after my pledge to Ronnie I felt unable even to discuss the poor soul
with Delavoye. But she was only less continually in my mind than Ronnie
himself, and to-night it seemed she was in his as well.

"O Mummie! Mummie--darling! My very, very, own little Mummie!"

God knows what had taken me upstairs, except the awful fascination of
such wanderings, the mental necessity of either hearing them or knowing
that they had ceased. On the stairs I felt so thankful they had ceased;
it was in the darkened play-room, now a magazi