"It is nothing to make any fuss about, mamma. Sometimes I like it. I listen, and you are very funny when you talk. That is, not you, but Theo Warrender. He talks as if nothing was right but only as you thought. I suppose he thinks you are very clever." Geoff paused for a moment, and gave her an investigating look; and then added in a less assured tone, "And I suppose you are clever, ain't you, mamma?" She was moved to a laugh, in the midst of other feelings. "Not that I know of, Geoff. I was never thought to be clever, so far as I am aware." "You are, though," he said, "when you don't make speeches as all the people do. I think you are cleverer with Theo than with anybody. What was he talking of to-day, for instance, when I was away?" The question was put so suddenly that she was almost embarrassed by it. "He was saying that he wished to be your tutor, Geoff. It was very kind. To save me from parting with you,--which I think would be more than I could bear,--and to save me the trouble of having a--strange gentleman in the house." "But he would be a strange gentleman, just the same." "He is a friend, the kindest friend; and then he would not be in the house. He wants to come over every day, just for your lessons. But it is too much,--it is too much to accept from any one," she said suddenly, struck for the first time with this view. "That would be very jolly!" cried Geoff. "I should like that: if he came only for my lessons, and then went away: and afterwards there would be only you and me,--nobody but you and me, just as we used to be all the time, before----" "Oh, don't say that! We were not always alone--before; there was----" "I know," said the little boy; but after a moment's pause he resumed: "You know that generally we were alone, mamma. I like that,--you and me, and no one else. Yes, let Theo come and teach me; and then when lessons are over go away." Lady Markland laughed. "You must think it a great privilege to teach you, Geoff. He is to be allowed that favour,--to do all he can for us,--and as soon as he has done it to be turned from the door. That would be kind on his part, but rather churlish on ours, don't you think?" "Oh," said the boy, "then he does it for something? You said tutors worked for money, and that Theo was well off, and did not want money. I see; then he wants something else. Is no one kind just for kindness? Must everybody be paid?" "In kindness, surely, Geoff." The boy looked at her with his little twinkling eyes and a twist in the corner of his mouth. Perhaps he did not understand the instinctive suspicion in his mind,--indeed, there is no possibility that he could understand it; but it moved him with a keen premonition of danger. "I should think it was easiest to pay in money," he said, with precocious wisdom. "How could you and me be kind?"