Manner B. is reserved for those hours which, for the sake of appearances, his official _fiancée_ is obliged to spend alone with Mr. Waters; going for dull walks—that is, for me they’re kept from being too deadly dull by the certainty that I am making them so for him!—and sitting with him in the den, where I will _not_ play accompaniments to his songs except as a last resource after I’ve exhausted every possibility of the stilted remark, the awkward pause, the resigned glance, and the languor that stops short only at the visible yawn. Since that first _tête-à-tête_ I have brought the contrasting of Manners A. and B. to a fine art. I’ve been revelling in the idea that for a whole fortnight this is what my employer will be forced to put up with. After all, it’s what the whole lives of some _married_ men amount to! And, according to the terms of the Governor’s own agreement, there’s nothing in all this of which he can openly complain! * * * * * He _has_ complained! Really, I need not have been surprised when it occurred, though I was scarcely expecting it. It began this (Saturday) morning, at breakfast. Now, any outsider peeping into the sunny dining-room might have considered that the group round the breakfast-table made an ideal picture of English family life. There was the gentle, grey-gowned mother pouring out coffee. The big, blonde son of the house, dressed for the City, sitting opposite to his _fiancée_—rather silent, but presumably only out of devotion. The _fiancée_ herself, a small brunette in dull-pink linen, looking, I think I may say, the picture of girlish sweetness, and being made much of by the two younger, taller, fair-haired sisters. For no outsider could have suspected that the small, dark girl and the big, blonde man were secretly at daggers drawn. Nor have the family a notion that I’m anything less than “the ideal wife for Billy.” I had come down last, to be greeted by the clarion voice of Theo, now no longer muffled in my presence. “Nancy! _Here’s_ news for you! Juno what? Our celebrated Uncle Albert Waters is coming down to inspect Billy’s sweetheart!” “Oh!” I said smiling. I didn’t see then why I shouldn’t smile. I hadn’t yet heard anything about this other Mr. Waters. “It’s to be hoped that he will admire her as much as we all do,” proclaimed Theodora; “because, if he doesn’t, won’t it be a ghastly week-end, Mother?” “Nonsense, dear! Don’t try and alarm poor Nancy about the new relation she has to meet.” “But—fancy! Meeting Uncle Albert _for the first time_! Golly!” “Theo-dora!” “I know. I did promise to chuck saying ‘Golly,’ but really it’s the only word that seems at all _like_ Uncle Albert,” declared the child. “Uncle Albert’s a terror! Talk about me-ee! Yes, talk about _me_ saying everything that comes into my head! Why, it’s from him that I inherit that! Only, I’m not in it with him!”