She hadn't the heart to tell him that the drawings had another destination, for as yet the existence of Ralph's took was a secret. They had agreed that nothing should disturb Mr. Waddington's pleasure in the publication of his Ramblings--his poor Ramblings. "One has to pay for blindness in this world," he said. "A lot of people'll be let in at that rate. I don't suppose five will care a rap about my drawings." "I wasn't thinking only of your drawings, my dear." He pondered. ... "Fanny tells me you're going to have a birthday. You're quite a little April girl, aren't you?" 2 It was Barbara's twenty-fourth birthday, and the day of her adoption. It had begun, unpropitiously, with something very like a dispute between Horatio and Fanny. Mr. Waddington had gone up to London the day before, and had returned with a pearl pendant for Fanny, and a green jade necklace for Barbara (not yet presented) and a canary yellow waistcoat for himself. And not only the waistcoat-- On the birthday morning Fanny had called out to Barbara as she passed her bedroom door: "Barbara, come here." Fanny was staring, fascinated, at four pairs of silk pyjamas spread out before her on the bed. Remarkable pyjamas, of a fierce magenta with forked lightning in orange running about all over them. "Good God, Fanny!" "You may well say 'Good God.' What would you say if you'd got to...? I'm not a nervous woman, but--" "It's a mercy he didn't get them eighteen years ago," said Barbara, "or Horry might have been born an idiot." "Yellow waistcoats are all very well," said Fanny. "But what _can_ he have been thinking of?" "I don't know," said Barbara. Somehow the pattern called up, irresistibly, the image of Mrs. Levitt. "Perhaps," she said, "he thinks he's Jupiter." "Well, I'm not What's-her-name, and I don't want to be blasted. So I'll put them somewhere where he can't find them." At that moment they had heard Mr. Waddington coming through his dressing-room and Barbara had run away by the door into the corridor. "Who took those things out of my wardrobe?" he said. He was gazing, dreamily, affectionately almost, at the pyjamas. "I did." "And what for?" "To look at them. Can you wonder? Horatio, if you wear them I'll apply for a separation." "You needn't worry." There was a queer look in his face, significant and furtive. And Fanny's mind, with one of its rapid flights, darted off from the pyjamas. "What are you going to do about Barbara?" she said. "_Do_ about her?" "Yes. You know we were going to adopt her if we liked her enough. And we do like her enough, don't we?" "I have no paternal feeling for Barbara," said Mr. Waddington. "The parental relation does not appeal to me as desirable or suitable." "I should have thought, considering her age and your age, it was very suitable indeed." "Not if it entails obligations that I might regret." "You're going to provide for her, aren't you? That isn't an obligation, surely, you'll regret?"