.

"Yes, it was a woman, Jack."

"Of course it was! Every woman, young or old, is jealous of her because
she's so pretty and--so--so feminine, and because she has nothing about
her of the clever, hard woman who is the fashion nowadays! The only
person who does her justice in this place is Rosamund."

"I disapprove very much of Rosamund's silly, school-girlish, adoration of
her," said Janet sharply.

She was just going to add something more when she saw Timmy slipping
quietly back into the room. And all at once she felt sorry--deeply
sorry--that this rather absurd scene had taken place between herself and
Jack. She blamed herself for having let it come to this pass.

"I daresay I'm prejudiced," she exclaimed. "Take this note, Jack, and
tell Mrs. Crofton that Flick shall be securely shut up."

"All right." Jack shrugged his shoulders rather ostentatiously, and
disappeared through the window, while Janet, with a half-humorous sigh,
told herself that perhaps he was justified in condemning in his own mind,
as he was certainly doing now, the extraordinary vagaries of womankind.
She turned back to her writing-table again. However disturbed and worried
she might feel, there were the weekly books to be gone through, and this
time without Nanna's shrewd, kindly help.

Suddenly she started, for Timmy's claw-like little hand was on her arm:
"Mum," he said earnestly, "do tell me what Colonel Crofton was really
like? Did that lady--you know, I mean the person Jack thinks is jealous
of Mrs. Crofton--tell you what he was like?"

"No--yes--oh, Timmy! I'm afraid you must have been listening at the door
just now?"

"I didn't like to come in," he said, wriggling uneasily. "I've never
heard Jack speak in such an angry way before. He was in a wax, wasn't he?
But, Mum, do tell me what Colonel Crofton looked like--I do _so_ want to
know."

She put down her pen, and turning, gazed down into the child's eager,
inquisitive little face.

"Why should you wish to know, Timmy?" She spoke rather coldly and
sternly.

She was sorry indeed now that she had been tempted to repeat what was
perhaps after all only the outcome of Miss Pendarth's unconscious
jealousy of the woman who had made a fool of the man she had loved as a
girl. It was unfortunately true that Olivia Pendarth had an unconscious
prejudice against all young and pretty women.

"I want to know," mumbled Timmy, "because I think I do know what he was
like."

"If you know what