"I do hope the police haven't taken her, for she is
really a treasure when she's sober. And I can't very well borrow the
Harmers' servant again. So breakfast will be late; but you said last
night you weren't in a hurry, and Douglas isn't either. Won't you have a
whisky and soda, Mr. Grierson, whilst you're waiting. The decanter is on
the sideboard, or it should be--oh, no, I remember, Douglas has got it
in the dressing-room. I'll fetch it."

Breakfast was finally over about eleven o'clock. "We're not usually so
late, though it's always a movable feast," Mrs. Kelly explained, and
then Douglas prepared to go down to the office.

"They can always call me on the telephone if they want me specially," he
remarked, "and showing my independence is part of my scheme. I don't
think you'll ever be able to bluff, Jimmy. It isn't in you. At the back
of your mind, really, you're staid and respectable, with a reverence for
those set in authority over you, even for those who'll set themselves
there. So you'll have to trust to the merit of your work alone, and it's
a slow job getting recognition that way. What do you say, Dora?"

Mrs. Kelly smiled, and then suddenly her face grew grave, almost sad.
"Yes, it is a slow job sometimes," she said, softly. "Only Mr.
Grierson's old enough not to go under whilst he's waiting, and, of
course, he has the knowledge. It's those raw boys from the provinces I
pity." She shook her head as if at some memory, then followed her
husband to the front door. "Come again, Mr. Grierson, won't you," she
said as she shook hands. "Of course, you'll see Douglas often at the
club, and if he gives me longer warning I'll make sure the cook doesn't
get out. Douglas, dear, you might ask them at the police station if
they've got her. I've got a kind of creepy feeling which tells me that
they have, and, you know, the magistrate said he wouldn't fine her next
time."

"You're lucky," Jimmy said abruptly, as they came down the steps of the
mansions into the street.

Kelly looked up with a grin. "Do you mean in having our cook?"

Jimmy disregarded the question, and went on, "Were you lonely when you
first came home, before you married? Did you have to go through it, or
had you people of your own?"

He did not put it clearly, but the other showed he understood when he
answered, "My people are all in the North, and they're Nonconformists
and teetotallers. I went up once, and the governor and I quarrelled. I
haven't se