mpathetic, and delightful.
She enjoyed intensely the sensation of their intimacy.

'Jack will never agree,' she said, when she could say nothing else.

'Ah! "Jack!"' He slightly imitated her tone. 'Well, that remains to be
seen.'

'Why do you take all this trouble for Milly?' she asked him. 'It's very
good of you.'

'Because I'm a fool, a meddling ass,' he replied lightly, standing up
and stroking his clothes.

'You aren't,' her eyes said, 'you are a dear.'

'No,' he went on, in a serious tone, 'Milly just wanted me to speak to
you, and after all I didn't see why I shouldn't. It's no earthly
business of mine, but--oh, well! Good-bye, I must be getting along.'

'Have you got an appointment to keep?' she questioned him.

'No--not an appointment.'

'Well then, you will stay a little longer. The trap will be back quite
soon.' Her voice seemed playfully to indicate that, as she had submitted
to his domination, so he must submit now to hers. 'And if you will
excuse me one moment, I will go and take off this thick jacket.'

Up in the bedroom, as she removed her coat in front of the pier-glass,
she smiled at her image timorously, yet in full content. Milly's
prospects did not appear to her to have been practically improved, nor
could she piece out of Arthur Twemlow's conversation a definite
argument; nevertheless she felt that he had made her see something more
clearly than heretofore, that he had induced in her, not by logic but by
persuasiveness, a mood towards her children which was brighter, more
sanguine, and even more loving, than any in her previous experience. She
was glad that she had left him alone for a minute, because such familiar
treatment of him somehow established definitely his status as a friend
of the house.

'Listen, Twemlow,' said Stanway loudly, 'I meant to run down to the
office for an hour this afternoon, but if you'll stay, I'll stay. That's
a bargain, eh?'

* * * * *

John had returned from London blusterously cheerful, and Twemlow stood
in the centre of his vehement noisy hospitality as in the centre of a
typhoon. He consented to stay, because the two girls, with hair blown
and still in their wet macintoshes, took him by the arm and said he
must. He was not the first guest in that house whom the apparent
heartiness of the host had failed to convince. Always there was
something sinister, insincere, and bullying in the invitations which
John gave, and in h