“If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go and talk to Mrs. Shepard a while,” said Bonnie May, not without significance. The atmosphere had become too rarefied for her. She was turning from an inimical clan. She was obeying that undying instinct which impelled the cavemen of old to get their backs toward a wall. Baron, Sr., prepared to go out. He turned to Victor and Flora as he took his leave, and his whole being twinkled quietly. He seemed to be saying: “Don’t ask me!” Flora stole up to her mother’s room. She tapped at the door affectionately--if one can tap at a door affectionately. A voice muffled by pillows was heard. “Making hay,” it seemed to say. Flora frowned in perplexity. Then her brow cleared and she smiled wistfully. “Oh!” she interpreted, “‘Go away.’” She went to Victor again. “I suppose she’ll have to go,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Oh, yes, certainly; yes, she’ll have to go,” agreed Victor firmly. “And yet I can’t say it’s her fault.” “You might say it’s her misfortune.” “Yes.... Isn’t she--wonderful!” “Oh, well, if two people simply can’t understand each other, that’s all there is to it.” “But _she_ understands. She just talks too much. She won’t realize that she’s only a child.” “Oh, what’s the use!” exclaimed Baron. He thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled through the house, up into the library. He took down a copy of “Diana of the Crossways,” and opened it at random, staring darkly at words which the late Mr. Meredith never wrote: “Why couldn’t she have made allowances? Why couldn’t she have overlooked things which plainly weren’t meant to be the least offensive?” Obscurities, perhaps, but what does one expect of Meredith? He meditated long and dejectedly. And then he heard his mother in the sitting-room. He put aside his book and assumed a light, untroubled air. “Better have it out now,” he reflected, as he opened the door and went into the sitting-room. “Where is the Queen of Sheba?” asked Mrs. Baron. Baron dropped into a chair. “You know I’m awfully sorry, mother,” he said. There was a singular lack of real repentance in his tone. “I don’t doubt that. Still, you might have taken me into your confidence before you brought that little limb of Satan into the house. I never heard of such a child. Never.” “But you know what the circumstances were----” “Don’t go into that again. I know that you brought her here, and that there wasn’t any excuse for such a foolish action.” “But, mother!” Baron’s face was heavy with perplexity. “She’s such a little thing! She hasn’t got anybody to turn to when she’s in trouble. My goodness! I think she’s done nobly--not whimpering once since she came into the house. She’s probably--rattled! How would you or I behave if we were in her shoes?” Mrs. Baron’s eyebrows steadily mounted. “The point is, we’re not in the slightest degree responsible for her. I want to know how we’re going to get rid of her.”