drew up a chair in
front of her brother.

"Harold, if you have no consideration for us, none for your own
position, none for the neighbourhood, if you will at all costs force
this woman upon us, don't you think that you might still spare a thought
for your son?"

Robert Pettifer had kept his eyes open that evening as well as his wife.
He took a step down into the room. He was anxious to take no part in the
dispute; he desired to be just; he was favourably inclined towards Stella
Ballantyne; looking at her he had been even a little moved. But Dick was
the first consideration. He had no children of his own, he cared for Dick
as he would have cared for his son, and when he went up each morning by
the train to his office in London there lay at the back of his mind the
thought that one day the fortune he was amassing would add a splendour to
Dick's career. Harold Hazlewood alone of the three seemed to have his
eyes sealed.

"Why, what on earth do you mean, Margaret?"

Margaret Pettifer sat down in her chair.

"Where was Dick yesterday afternoon?"

"Margaret, I don't know."

"I do. I saw him. He was with Stella Ballantyne on the river--in the
dusk--in a Canadian canoe." She uttered each fresh detail in a more
indignant tone, as though it aggravated the crime. Yet even so she had
not done. There was, it seemed, a culminating offence. "She was wearing a
white lace frock with a big hat."

"Well," said Mr. Hazlewood mildly, "I don't think I have anything against
big hats."

"She was trailing her hand in the water--that he might notice its
slenderness of course. Outrageous I call it!"

Mr. Hazlewood nodded his head at his indignant sister.

"I know that frame of mind very well, Margaret," he remarked. "She cannot
do right. If she had been wearing a small hat she would have been
Frenchified."

But Mrs. Pettifer was not in a mood for argument.

"Can't you see what it all means?" she cried in exasperation.

"I can. I do," Mr. Hazlewood retorted and he smiled proudly upon his
sister. "The boy's better nature is awakening."

Margaret Pettifer lifted up her hands.

"The boy!" she exclaimed. "He's thirty-four if he's a day."

She leaned forward in her chair and pointing up to the bay asked: "Why is
that window open, Harold?"

Harold Hazlewood showed his first sign of discomfort. He shifted in
his chair.

"It's a hot night, Margaret."

"That is not the reason," Mrs. Pettifer retorted implacably.
"Where is Dick