loved him; and above
all, Miss Agatha had spoiled him. After fifteen years of being the pivot
about which the economy of a household revolves, after fifteen years of
being the inevitable person whose approval must be secured before any
domestic alteration, however trivial, may be considered, no mortal man
may hope to remain a paragon of unselfishness.

Colonel Musgrave joyed in the society of women. But he classed
them--say, with the croquettes adorned with pink paper frills which were
then invariably served at the suppers of the Lichfield German Club,--as
acceptable enough, upon a conscious holiday, but wholly incongruous with
the slippered ease of home. When you had an inclination for feminine
society, you shaved and changed your clothes and thought up an impromptu
or so against emergency, and went forth to seek it. That was natural;
but to have a petticoated young person infesting your house, hourly, was
as preposterous as ice-cream soda at breakfast.

The metaphor set him off at a tangent. He wondered if this Patricia
person could not (tactfully) be induced to take her bath after
breakfast, as Agatha did? after he had his? Why, confound the girl, he
was not responsible for there being only one bathroom in the house! It
was necessary for him to have his bath and be at the Library by nine
o'clock. This interloper must be made to understand as much.

The colonel reached the Library undecided as to whether Miss Stapylton
had better breakfast in her room, or if it would be entirely proper for
her to come to the table in one of those fluffy lace-trimmed garments
such as Agatha affected at the day's beginning?

The question was a nice one. It was not as though servants were willing
to be bothered with carrying trays to people's rooms; he knew what
Agatha had to say upon that subject. It was not as though he were the
chit's first cousin, either. He almost wished himself in the decline of
life, and free to treat the girl paternally.

And so he fretted all that afternoon.

* * * * *

Then, too, he reflected that it would be very awkward if Agatha should
be unwell while this Patricia person was in the house. Agatha in her
normal state was of course the kindliest and cheeriest gentlewoman in
the universe, but any physical illness appeared to transform her nature
disastrously. She had her "attacks," she "felt badly" very often
nowadays, poor dear; and how was a Patricia person to be expected