He was like a large, pleased spaniel assaulted by a Persian kitten. He was so slow that he seemed never to get a word out; he was so happy that he never made the effort. He had promised to stand for Mid-Kent when they had been married one year, because she declared that he needed an occupation, and would be tired of her prattle. She said she could hold him a year; after that he’d have to go out of the house. And, indeed, she ran on and on, but it was pleasant enough to hear her as she thought aloud, her mind linking up topic to topic. “Yes,” she said, “there were father’s speculations, that were as bad for her as the winds on the sea. He’d roar out: ‘I never put into anything in any one year more than three-fifths of my year’s screw. I never did, and I never will. And the wheel’s bound to turn right side up.’ But it never did, and it never would. And he had expensive tastes, and there was me to dress. And I’ve seen him sitting with his chin between his hands. So that when he died his coffin stood in an empty house--the brokers had cleared it that day. And I was at the Brigstocks’--up in the nursery.” Dudley Leicester swore suddenly at Fate that had so misused his Puff-Ball. “I’ve never really told you this,” Pauline said, “though I dare say you knew it.” “I never knew it,” he said. “By God! I’d like to, ... Well, the most I knew was, I heard the Brigstocks only gave you three days for your father’s funeral, and cut it off your holidays next summer.” “Well, I’ve got to thank them that I never really think of mother as a widow. I’m glad of that; and there _were_ five children in the nursery, and only me to look after them.” Mr. Leicester muttered beneath his breath that they were cursed hogs. “Well, I’ve got to thank them for _you_!” she said. “For if Mr. Grimshaw hadn’t come up into the nursery--if he hadn’t been so fond of children--he’d never have seen me, and so he’d never have helped mother to patch up her impossible affairs, and get her compassionate allowance, and keep out of rooms in Hampton Court that she dreaded so. _You’d_ never have come to Hampton Court. You’ve never been to Hampton Court in your life.” “I _have_,” Dudley Leicester asseverated. “When I was a kid I scratched a wart off my hand on the hollies in the maze; there’s the scar on the little finger. And I wish you’d call him Robert. I’ve told you so many times. It’s deuced bad form to call him Mr. Grimshaw.” Pauline’s lower lip curved inwards. “Anyhow, mother’s ambition to have a pony was a secret all the time.” “She might have had fifty ponies if I’d known,” Leicester said. “But you were engaged to Etta Stackpole all the while,” Pauline mocked him. “You know you’d have married her if she had not flirted with the boot-blacks. You’ve told me so many times! And anyhow, she didn’t want fifty ponies: she only wanted one. And, now I’m off her hands, and she’s been able to get one--there comes this....”