d destroyed the letter in his indignation. He had
destroyed it, but solely to escape any question of his showing it to his
wife. He said a happier thing by chance; he said that for two pins he
would motor over to the school and see for himself how the boy really was;
then perhaps he would be in a position to consider the entreaty which Mrs.
Upton added to the specialist's demand, that his patient should be placed
under his eye in town. Mr. Upton went so far, however, without much
immediate intention of taking so strong a measure.

He wished to discuss the matter with Horace; he might be quite justified
in his fears. He was sorry he had let them lead to words with his eldest
son. There were aspects of the case, as it presented itself to his mind,
which he could hardly thresh out with Lettice, and her mother must not
know of his anxiety on any account. Horace, however, had gone off earlier
than usual in his dudgeon.

Mr. Upton was not long in following him to the works.

It was a charming garden that he passed through on his way; it charmed its
owner all the more from his having made it himself out of a few rolling
meadows. The rhododendrons were at the climax of their June glory. The
new red gravel (his own colouring to a shade) appealed to an eye which had
never looked longer than necessary in the glass. Lawn-tennis courts were
marked out snowily on a shaven lawn; the only eyesore the good man
encountered was poor Pocket's snob-wickets painted on a buttress in the
back premises; his own belching blast-furnaces, corroding and defiling
acres and acres within a few hundred yards of his garden wall, were but
another form of beauty to the sturdy Briton who had made them too.

Horace was called into the private office and speedily propitiated. "I
was more anxious than I could tell you at the time," his father said; "the
fact is, I concealed half the fellow's letter on account of Lettice. But
it's a man's matter, and you ought to know."

Of course the letter had stated that the erratic patient had failed to
keep his appointment on the morning of writing; but if it had drawn the
line of information there, it is highly improbable that Mr. Upton would
have exercised so wise a discretion at table and in his wife's room. It
now appeared that as a busy professional man the outspoken Bompas had gone
far out of his way to play Mahomet to his patient's mountain. Tony had
told him where he hoped to stay in London, which