ment there came into his mind a question
Bob Pillin had asked the other night. "By the way, you can't borrow on a
settlement, can you? Isn't there generally some clause against it?" Had
this woman been trying to borrow from him on that settlement? But at
this moment he reached the house, and got out of his cab still undecided
as to how he was going to work the oracle. Impudence, constitutional and
professional, sustained him in saying to the little maid:

"Mrs. Larne at home? Say Mr. Charles Ventnor, will you?"

His quick brown eyes took in the apparel of the passage which served for
hall--the deep blue paper on the walls, lilac-patterned curtains over
the doors, the well-known print of a nude young woman looking over her
shoulder, and he thought: 'H'm! Distinctly tasty!' They noted, too,
a small brown-and-white dog cowering in terror at the very end of the
passage, and he murmured affably: "Fluffy! Come here, Fluffy!" till
Carmen's teeth chattered in her head.

"Will you come in, sir?"

Mr. Ventnor ran his hand over his whiskers, and, entering a room, was
impressed at once by its air of domesticity. On a sofa a handsome woman
and a pretty young girl were surrounded by sewing apparatus and some
white material. The girl looked up, but the elder lady rose.

Mr. Ventnor said easily

"You know my young friend, Mr. Robert Pillin, I think."

The lady, whose bulk and bloom struck him to the point of admiration,
murmured in a full, sweet drawl:

"Oh! Ye-es. Are you from Messrs. Scrivens?"

With the swift reflection: 'As I thought!' Mr. Ventnor answered:

"Er--not exactly. I am a solicitor though; came just to ask about a
certain settlement that Mr. Pillin tells me you're entitled under."

"Phyllis dear!"

Seeing the girl about to rise from underneath the white stuff, Mr.
Ventnor said quickly:

"Pray don't disturb yourself--just a formality!" It had struck him at
once that the lady would have to speak the truth in the presence of this
third party, and he went on: "Quite recent, I think. This'll be your
first interest-on six thousand pounds? Is that right?" And at the limpid
assent of that rich, sweet voice, he thought: 'Fine woman; what eyes!'

"Thank you; that's quite enough. I can go to Scrivens for any detail.
Nice young fellow, Bob Pillin, isn't he?" He saw the girl's chin tilt,
and Mrs. Larne's full mouth curling in a smile.

"Delightful young man; we're very fond of him."

And he proceeded:

"I'm quite