“Set my brother against me. Put all sorts of beastly--Am--beastly ideas into his head. She has no use for a man unless he’s eternally stewing over a row of figures, grubbing after money. So now he’s got this idiotic idea of my learning this typing and shorthand rot. And why? So I can get a job in his office. I never heard such silly rot. What earthly use is that stuff going to be? I shan’t be one of his clerks. It’s _her_ idea. She wants to humiliate me.” Frances murmured something sympathetic. “What business were you in before?” she asked. “Not in any business,” he replied, surprised. “Didn’t you understand? I suppose, according to _your_ ideas, I’m no good. I’ve never done anything much. Just stopped at home while my mother was alive.... Until two years ago ... when she died. She--liked to have me at home. We got on together very well.” He was rather pathetically anxious to be friendly and communicative now, to show her that he wasn’t aloof and condescending. He tried to tell her about himself, indirectly to present his credentials. And did so, far more fully than he imagined. With every word, spoken and unspoken, she was more certain that she had not been mistaken--that he was “nice,” that he was to be trusted, that he was mysteriously likable. “We travelled, and so on,” he continued. “She liked that.... Do you know, when I look at this girl Horace has married, I’m glad--really glad, the poor old mater--isn’t here.” Then, unfortunately, he got started on a very favourite topic; he told her what he had endured from “that girl”; how she sneered at him, persecuted him, was continually poisoning his brother’s mind against him. Frances listened with a heavy heart. She couldn’t approve of this! It wasn’t manly; it wasn’t fine. She pitied him, yearned over him, and at the same time felt a passionate Defoe desire to lecture him, to tell him he was wrong, didn’t see things in a proper light. She wanted to tell him what to do and offer to help him to do it. Conversation about his sister-in-law lasted until they had reached Frankie’s door. Then he was once more surprised and regretful that he hadn’t made better use of his time. He took Frankie’s proffered hand warmly. “You see,” he said, “I didn’t ask _your_ name. It wasn’t necessary.” “Do you know it?” she asked, a little puzzled. “No, not that. Simply, I don’t need any credentials to know that you’re--absolutely--all right. Absolutely.” She smiled at him maternally. She liked that clumsy compliment; she liked his naïveness, his simplicity, even his rudeness. She saw him no longer as a young man, but as a boy, who had been badly trained, a rather spoilt boy. She felt very peaceful, very kindly, toward him and toward everyone else. She had never known life to be so satisfying as it was that evening, for no reason at all. CHAPTER TWELVE I He was there, the next evening, and welcomed her as an old friend; in fact, he talked so much that she grew uneasy.