my—pretty face! Do you think I am pretty still?”

“I should rather think I do!” Jack framed his wife’s face in his hands, stooping to kiss the soft flushed cheeks as fondly as he had done in the time of that other lace-wreathed hat six years before. Pat and Jim returned to their dominoes, bored by such foolish proceedings on the part of their parents, while Margot covered her face with her hands, with ostentatious propriety.

“This is no place for me! Consider my feelings, Jack. I’m like a story I once read in an old volume of Good Words, ‘Lovely yet Unloved!’ When you have quite finished love-making, I want a private chat with you, while Edie puts the boys to bed. They will hate me for suggesting such a thing, but it is already past their hour, and I must have ten minutes’ talk on a point of life and death!”

“Come away, boys; we are not wanted here. Daddy will come upstairs and see you again before you go to sleep.”

Mother and sons departed together, and Jack Martin sat down on the corner of the sofa and leant his head on his hand. With his wife’s departure the light went out of his face, but he smiled at his sister-in-law with an air of affectionate camaraderie.

“You are a little brick, Margot! You have done Edie a world of good. What can I do for you in return? I am at your service.”

Margot pulled forward the chair that her sister had chosen as the least lumpy which the room afforded, and seated herself before him, returning his glance with an odd mixture of mischief and embarrassment.

“It’s about Ron. The year of probation is nearly over.”

“I know it.”

“Two months more will decide whether he is to be a broker or a poet. It will mean death to Ronald to be sent into the City.”

“You are wrong there. If he is a poet, no amount of brokering will alter the fact, any more than it will change the colour of his eyes or hair. It is bound to come out sooner or later. You will probably think me a brute, if I suggest that a little discipline and knowledge of the world might improve the value of his writings.”

“Yes, I will! What does a poet want with a knowledge of the world, in the common, sordid sense? Let him keep his mind unsullied, and be an inspiration to others. When we were children, we used to keep birds in the nursery, in a very fine cage with golden bars, 

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