She leant back, smiling. 'I _know_ I'm right! There's simply no question about it.' 'Well, what do you think we ought to do about it?' said Edith. 'He goes to a preparatory school now where they don't have any music lessons at all.' 'All the better,' she answered. 'The sort of lessons he would get at a school would be no use to him.' 'So I should think,' murmured Edith. 'Leave it, say, for the moment, and when he comes back for his next holidays put him under a good teacher--a really great man. And you'll see!' 'I daresay we shall,' said Bruce, considerably relieved at the postponement. 'Funny though, isn't it, his not knowing one tune from another, when he's a born musician?' It flashed across Edith what an immense bond of sympathy it was between Bruce and Madame Frabelle that neither of them was burdened with the slightest sense of humour. When he presently went out (each of them preferred talking to Her alone, and She also enjoyed a _tete-a-tete_ most) Madame Frabelle drew up her chair nearer to Edith and said: 'My dear, I'm going to tell you something. Don't be angry with me, or think me impertinent, but you've been very kind to me, and I look upon you as a real friend.' 'It's very sweet of you,' said Edith, feeling hypnotised, and as if she would gladly devote her life to Madame Frabelle. 'Well, I can see something. You are not quite happy.' 'Not happy!' exclaimed Edith. 'No. You have a trouble, and I'd give anything to take it away.' Madame Frabelle looked at her with sympathy, pressed her hand, then looked away. Edith knew she was looking away out of delicacy. Delicacy about what? It was an effort not to laugh; but, oddly enough, it was also an effort not to feel secretly miserable. She wondered, though, what she was unhappy about. She need not have troubled, for Madame Frabelle was quite willing to tell her. She was, indeed, willing to tell anyone anything. Perhaps that was the secret of her charm. CHAPTER IV It was utterly impossible, literally out of the question, that Madame Frabelle could know anything about the one trouble, the one danger, that so narrowly escaped being almost a tragedy, in Edith's life.