There was some one to be very angry with; that was a simplification. It might be Etta, but Lestrange was slow to think so. Hadn’t she congratulated him at once? And besides, he couldn’t think that Etta could poison a child’s mind. Perhaps it was that fool Flinders; he seemed a perfectly incompetent chap, and he might possibly have some sentimental theories on step-mothers. Anyhow, he would go downstairs and talk to Etta; meanwhile he stooped over the child and shook his shoulder gently. “Don’t cry, old man,” he said quietly. “I promise you, you will like this new friend. She doesn’t want to take your mother’s place, or anything; she is just a new friend. To-morrow you shall see her, and tell me what you feel. You needn’t go to the Zoo. Aunt Etta isn’t going away at present, and you shall see her whenever you like.” “Mr. Flinders said there was going to be great changes,” sobbed the boy. The father closed his lips suddenly; there was going to be one great change--and that would be Mr. Flinders. He recalled his sister’s glance at dinner; evidently Etta thought the man a fool too. He felt vaguely relieved to have found out that it was Flinders. III Etta was sitting in the library doing church embroidery on a frame; it was a thing she did extremely well; in fact, she was a woman who never did anything badly; if there were possibilities of ignorance in her, she avoided those fields in which they might be betrayed. Horace did not want to talk to her while she worked; he was never quite sure that he had her whole attention; she might be counting stitches or planning patterns, and so miss his points. He knew, however, that it does not do to start an important conversation with a woman by establishing a grievance, so he did not ask her to stop; he merely found refuge in a succession of cigarettes. “Was it a surprise to you, Etta,” he began in an off-hand tone, “to hear of my engagement?” Etta took up a thread of pink silk, and then decided for pale blue. “I don’t know that engagements ever surprise me,” she replied. “If men can afford to marry, and there is no other impediment, they generally do; and if they are attractive to women, they always do.” “You mean if women attract them?” he interjected. “My dear boy,” said his sister, moving the frame slightly more under the electric light, “it never does to confuse cause and effect. If women want to marry a man, he marries. In your case, of course, there was some protection provided you remained at home; the rest was merely a question of time.”