ldn't help him overtaking me. Besides----'

'Besides!' he took her up. 'You had your hand on his shoulder. How do
you explain that?'

Millicent was silent.

'I'm ashamed of you, regularly ashamed ... You with your hand on his
shoulder in full sight of the works! And on your mother's birthday too!'

Leonora involuntarily stirred. For more than twenty years it had been
his custom to give her a kiss and a ten-pound note before breakfast on
her birthday, but this year he had so far made no mention whatever of
the anniversary.

'I'm going to put my foot down,' he continued with grieved majesty. 'I
don't want to, but you force me to it. I'll have no goings-on with Fred
Ryley. Understand that. And I'll have no more idling about. You
girls--at least you two--are bone-idle. Ethel shall begin to go to the
works next Monday. I want a clerk. And you, Milly, must take up the
housekeeping. Mother, you'll see to that.'

Leonora reflected that whereas Ethel showed a marked gift for
housekeeping, Milly was instinctively averse to everything merely
domestic. But with her acquired fatalism she accepted the ukase.

'You understand,' said John to his pert youngest.

'Yes, papa.'

'No more carrying-on with Fred Ryley--or any one else.'

'No, papa.'

'I've got quite enough to worry me without being bothered by you girls.'

Rose left the table, consciously innocent both of sloth and of light
behaviour.

'What are you going to do now, Rose?' He could not let her off
scot-free.

'Read my chemistry, father.'

'You'll do no such thing.'

'I must, if I'm to pass at Christmas,' she said firmly. 'It's my weakest
subject.'

'Christmas or no Christmas,' he replied, 'I'm not going to let you kill
yourself. Look at your face! I wonder your mother----'

'Run into the garden for a while, my dear,' said Leonora softly, and the
girl moved to obey.

'Rose,' he called her back sharply as his exasperation became fidgetty.
'Don't be in such a hurry. Open the window--an inch.'

* * * * *

Ethel and Millicent disappeared after the manner of young fox-terriers;
they did not visibly depart; they were there, one looked away, they were
gone. In the bedroom which they shared, the door well locked, they threw
oft all restraints, conventions, pretences, and discussed the world, and
their own world, with terrible candour. This sacred and untidy
apartment, where many of the habits of childhood still lingered, was a