"Yes. That's just it. Well, I couldn't exactly tell Mrs. Bowring that, could I? Besides, one isn't vain of being respectable. I couldn't say, Please, Mrs. Bowring, my father is Mr. Smith, and my mother was a Miss Brown, of very good family, and we've got five hundred a year in Consols, and we're not in trade, and I've been to a good school, and am not at all dangerous. It would have sounded so--so uncalled for, don't you know? Wouldn't it?" "Very. But now that you've explained it to me, I suppose I may tell my mother, mayn't I? Let me see. Your father is Mr. Smith, and your mother was a Miss Brown--" "Oh, please--no!" interrupted Johnstone. "I didn't mean it so very literally. But it is just about that sort of thing--just like anybody else. Only about our not being in trade, I'm not so sure of that. My father is a brewer. Brewing is not a profession, so I suppose it must be a trade, isn't it?" "You might call it a manufacture," suggested Clare. "Yes. It sounds better. But that isn't the question, you know. You'll see my people when they come, and then you'll understand what I mean--they really are tremendously respectable." "Of course!" assented the young girl. "Like the party you came with on the yacht. That kind of people." "Oh dear no!" exclaimed Johnstone. "Not at all those kind of people. They wouldn't like it at all, if you said so." "Ah! indeed!" Clare was inclined to laugh again. "The party I came with belong rather to a gay set. Awfully nice, you know," he hastened to add, "and quite the people one knows at home. But my father and mother--oh no! they are quite different--the difference between whist and baccarat, you know, if you understand that sort of thing--old port and brandy and soda--both very good in their way, but quite different." "I should think so." "Then--" Johnstone hesitated again. "Then, Miss Bowring--you don't think that your mother really dislikes me, after all?" "Oh dear no! Not in the least. I've heard her say all sorts of nice things about you." "Really? Then I think I'll stay here. I didn't want to be a nuisance, you know--always in the way." "You're not in the way," answered Clare. Mrs. Bowring came back with her shawl, and the rest of the evening passed off as usual. Later, when she was alone, the young girl remembered all the conversation, and she saw that it had been in her power to make Johnstone leave Amalfi. While she was wondering why she had not done so, since she hated him for what she knew of him, she fell asleep, and the question remained unanswered. In the morning she told the substance of it all to her mother, and ended by telling her that Johnstone's father was a brewer. "Of course," answered Mrs. Bowring absently. "I know that." Then she realised what she had said, and glanced at Clare with an odd, scared look. Clare uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Mother! Why, then--you knew all about him! Why didn't you tell me?"