“I ’ope that God may guide her, Mr. Barry,--for there’s devils a-plenty hunting out such jobs.” He said: “She’s turned out rather a wonderful sort, Xantippe. Sometimes beginners do make good in such a short time. I’ve known one or two instances. I’ve heard of others. Usually there’s disaster as an aftermath. They’re people who were born to do that one thing _once_. Nothing else. They’re rockets. Their capacity is emptied in one dazzling flare-up. “A burnt-out brain remains.... There’s no tragedy like it.... Consistent failure is less cruel. “But this girl isn’t like that. I’m satisfied. She’s merely starting. She’s modest, honest, intelligent. You and I bear witness to her courage. And there seems to be no question about her talent.... It seems to be one of those instances where circumstance plays second fiddle to Destiny.” He picked up the faded clove-pink, looked at it absently, laid it upon his desk. “So ‘that’s that,’ as she says sometimes.” He looked up smilingly at Mrs. Sniffen, then his smile degenerated into a grin: “Aunt Cornelia is in town. I’m lunching there.” At one o’clock Annan sauntered up to the limestone portal. “Hello, Jennings,” he said genially to a large, severe man who opened the door,--“the three most annoying things in the world are death, hay-fever, and nephews. The last are worst, because more frequent. Kindly prepare Mrs. Grandcourt.” She was already in the drawing-room. She offered him the celebrated hand once compared to Queen Victoria’s. He saluted the accustomed pearl--the black one: “Madame my Aunt, your most obedient----” Her butler, Seaman, announced luncheon with the reverence of a Second-Adventist. Annan offered his arm to the dumpy old woman. Only her thin, high-bridged, arrogant nose redeemed her features of a retired charwoman. Watery eyes inspected him across the table; a little withered chin tucked between dewlaps, a sagging, discontented mouth, a mottled skin, concluded the ensemble. White lace collar and cuffs turned over the black gown did what was sartorially possible for Mrs. Magnelius Grandcourt. Otherwise, the famous string of cherry-sized pearls dangled to what should have been her waist. “It appears,” she said, “that you still inhabit your alley.” “Yes, Barry-in-our-alley,” he said cheerfully. “When are you going to move to a suitable neighbourhood?” she inquired with that peculiar pitch of tone usually, in her sex, indicative of displeasure. “I like to be quaint,” he explained, grinning. After a pause and a shift to the next course: “_I_ don’t know where you get your taste for squalour,” she said. “You didn’t inherit it.” “Didn’t one of our ancestors haunt bar-maids?” he enquired guilelessly. “I always understood that was where we acquired our bar-sinister----” “Come, Barry,” she said sharply; sat staring at him in a cold rage that Seaman’s ears should have been polluted by such a pleasantry.