ing than ever.

"Well, if whacking's no use, what am I to do with you? Shut you up here
till bedtime--eh?"

Roy considered that dismal proposition, with his eyes on the summer
world outside.

"Well--you can if you like. But it wouldn't be fair." A pause. "You
don't know what a horrid boy he was, Daddy. _You'd_ have hit him
harder--even if he _was_ a guest."

"I wonder!" Nevil fatally admitted. "Of course it would all depend on
the provocation."

"What's 'provication'?"

The instant alertness, over a new word, brought back the smile to
Nevil's eyes.

"It means--saying or doing something bad enough to make it right for you
to be angry."

"Well, it was bad enough. It was"--a portentous pause--"about Mummy."

"About Mummy?" The sharp change in his father's tone was at once
startling and comforting. "Look here, Roy. No more mysteries. This is
my affair as much as yours. Come here."

Pulling a bedside chair near the window, he sat down and drew Roy close
to him, taking his shoulders between his hands.

"Now then, old boy, tell me just exactly what happened--as man to man."

The appeal was irresistible. But--how could he----? The very change in
his father's manner made the telling at once more difficult and more
urgent.

"Daddy--it hurts too much. I don't know how to say it----" he faltered,
and the blood tingled in his cheeks.

If Nevil Sinclair was not a stern father, neither was he a very
demonstrative one. Even his closest relations were tinged with something
of the artist's detachment, and innate respect for the individual even
in embryo. But at sight of Roy's distress and delicacy of feeling, his
heart melted in him. Without a word, he slipped an arm round the boy's
shoulder and drew him closer still.

"That better, eh? You've got to pull it through, somehow," he said
gently, so holding him that Roy could, if he chose, nestle against him.
He did choose. It might be babyish; but he hated telling: and it was a
wee bit easier with his face hidden. So, in broken phrases and in a
small voice that quivered with anger revived--he told.

While he was telling, his father said nothing; and when it was over, he
still said nothing. He seemed to be looking out of the window, and Roy
felt him draw one big breath.

"Have you got to whack me--now, Daddy?" he asked, still in his small
voice.

His father's hand closed on his arm. "No. You were right, Roy," he said.
"I would have hit harder. Ill-mannered little bea