"You always time your fits of morality so well," he observed cynically. "I don't suppose poor old Tom's amusing company just now, and he's certainly deuced hard up." Mrs. Bolton looked a very plausible picture of injured innocence, but of course there was something in what Frank Caylesham said; there generally was, though it might not be what you would be best pleased to find. Tom was not lively nor inclined for gaiety, and he had just made a composition with his creditors. On the other hand, Miss Henderson was in funds (having completed her negotiations with the Parmenter family), and had suggested a winter on the Riviera, with herself for hostess. There are, fortunately, moments when the good and the pleasant coincide; the worst of it is that such happy harmonies are apt to come rather late in the day. "It's all different now that woman's gone," observed Mrs. Bolton. "It's the children now, Frank." "Supposing it is, why am I to be dragged into it?" "We must get him to go back to them." Various feelings combined to make Mrs. Bolton very earnest. "He wants to stay here, does he?" "No, he hates being here now. Yes, he does. He only comes because he's got nobody else to speak to. And he's in awful dumps all the time. It's not very cheerful for me." "I daresay not, Flora. But why doesn't he go back then?" Mrs. Bolton had been moving about the room restlessly. Her back was to Caylesham as she answered: "He won't. He says he can't. He says----" Caylesham threw a glance at her, his brows raised. "What does he say, Flora?" "Oh, it's nonsense--and he needn't say it to me, anyhow. It really isn't particularly pleasant for me. Oh, well, then, he says he's not fit to go near them." She turned round to him; there was a flush on her face. "Such nonsense!" she ended impatiently. Caylesham pulled his moustache, and smiled reflectively. "I suppose it might take him like that," he observed, with an impartial air. "Oh, I know you're only laughing at me! But I tell you, I don't like it, Frank." "These little incidents are--well, incidental, Flora. Innocent children, you know! And I shouldn't be surprised if he even made excuses for Harriet now?" "No, he doesn't do that. It's the children. Stop smiling like that, will you?" "Certainly, my dear Flora. My smile was a pure oversight." "It was all I could do to get him to go to the funeral. Do you think she killed herself, Frank?" "I've not the least intention of examining the question. What can it matter?" Mrs. Bolton shrugged her shoulders impatiently. It did seem to her to matter, but she would not let Caylesham think that it mattered much. She returned to her point about the children. "He's miserable thinking about them, and yet he won't go near them. I call it idiotic." "So do I. But then they aren't our children." "Well, I'm not going to stand his saying it again and again to me." "I really agree. There can't be any reason for saying such a thing more than once."