on a chair, but the chief nurse's
lap was between him and the chair-seat. Both nurses chattered to him
in Kensingtonian accents, but he offered no replies.

"Go back to 262," said Edward Henry to his chauffeur.

Arrived again in Eaton Square, he did not give himself time to be
imposed upon by the grandiosity of the square in general, nor of No.
262 in particular. He just ran up the steps and rang the visitors'
bell.

"After all," he said to himself as he waited, "these houses aren't
even semi-detached! They're just houses in a row, and I bet every one
of 'em can hear the piano next door!"

The butler whom he had previously caught sight of opened the great
portal.

"I want to see Lady Woldo."

"Her ladyship--" began the formidable official.

"Now, look here, my man," said Edward Henry, rather in desperation, "I
must see Lady Woldo instantly. It's about the baby--"

"About his lordship?"

"Yes. And look lively, please."

He stepped into the sombre and sumptuous hall.

"Well," he reflected, "I _am_ going it--no mistake!"

VI

He was in a large back drawing-room, of which the window, looking
north, was in rich stained glass. "No doubt because they're ashamed of
the view," he said to himself. The size of the chimneypiece impressed
him, and also its rich carving. "But what an old-fashioned grate!" he
said to himself. "They need gilt radiators here." The doorway was a
marvel of ornate sculpture, and he liked it. He liked, too, the
effect of the oil-paintings--mainly portraits--on the walls, and the
immensity of the brass fender, and the rugs, and the leather-work of
the chairs. But there could be no question that the room was too dark
for the taste of any householder clever enough to know the difference
between a house and a church.

There was a plunging noise at the door behind him.

"What's amiss?" he heard a woman's voice. And as he heard it he
thrilled with sympathetic vibrations. It was not a North Staffordshire
voice, but it was a South Yorkshire voice, which is almost the same
thing. It seemed to him to be the first un-Kensingtonian voice to
soothe his ear since he had left the Five Towns. Moreover, nobody born
south of the Trent would have said, "What's amiss?" A southerner
would have said, "What's the matter?" Or, more probably, "What's the
mattah?"

He turned and saw a breathless and very beautiful woman, of about
twenty-nine or thirty, clothed in black, and she was in the act
of removin