“But she isn’t?”

“Oh, no. She isn’t the type. It’s—it’s not so simple as that.”

“Have you any idea?” I looked at him curiously.

He shook his head, but his eyes were absent.

“No,” he said. “I don’t know at all. But I don’t like it, Burton—some harm is going to come of this.”

II

When I got back to the house I found Megan sitting on the veranda steps, her chin resting on her knees.

She greeted me with her usual lack of ceremony.

“Hallo,” she said. “Do you think I could come to lunch?”

“Certainly,” I said.

“If it’s chops, or anything difficult like that and they won’t go round, just tell me,” shouted Megan as I went round to apprize Partridge of the fact that there would be three to lunch.

I fancy that Partridge sniffed. She certainly managed to convey without saying a word of any kind, that she didn’t think much of that Miss Megan.

I went back to the veranda.

“Is it quite all right?” asked Megan anxiously.

“Quite all right,” I said. “Irish stew.”

“Oh well, that’s rather like dogs’ dinner anyway, isn’t it? I mean it’s mostly potato and flavour.”

“Quite,” I said.

I took out my cigarette case and offered it to Megan. She flushed.

“How nice of you.”

“Won’t you have one?”

“No, I don’t think I will, but it was very nice of you to offer it to me—just as though I was a real person.”

“Aren’t you a real person?” I said amused.

Megan shook her head, then, changing the subject, she stretched out a long dusty leg for my inspection.

“I’ve darned my stockings,” she announced proudly.

I am not an authority on darning, but it did occur to me that the strange puckered blot of violently contrasting wool was perhaps not quite a success.

“It’s much more uncomfortable than the hole,” said Megan.

“It looks as though it might be,” I agreed.

“Does your sister darn well?”

I tried to think if I had ever observed any of Joanna’s handiwork in this direction.

“I don’t know,” I had to confess.

“Well, what does she do when she gets a hole in her stocking?”

“I rather think,” I said reluctantly, “that she throws them away and buys another pair.”

“Very sensible,” said Megan. “But I can’t do that. I get an allowance now—forty pounds a year. You can’t do much on that.”

I agreed.

“If only I wore black stockings, I could ink my legs,” said Megan sadly. “That’s what I always did at school. Miss Batworthy, the mistress who looked after our mending was like her name—blind as a bat. It was awfully useful.”

“It must have been,” I said.

We were silent while I smoked my pipe. It was quite a companionable silence.

Megan broke it by saying suddenly and violently:

“I suppose you think I’m awful, like everyone else?”

I was so startled that my pipe fell out of my mouth. It was a meerschaum, just colouring nicely, and it broke. I said angrily to Megan: