"Yes, I have met him. I used to see him sometimes at my father's cabaret." She saw he did not know what a cabaret was, and she added, "My father keeps a public-house in the Rue du Bac." Roger was so astonished that he did not perceive that Annette had experienced a shock. "Your father!" he said. "A publican!" "He was a courier first," she said, speaking with difficulty, like one stunned but forcing herself to attend to some trivial matter. "That was how my mother met him. And after her death he set up a little drinking-shop, and married again--a woman in his own class of life. I lived with them for a year, till--last September." "Good Lord!" said Roger, and he said no more. He could only look at Annette in sheer astonishment. The daughter of a publican! He was deeply perturbed. The apple tree had quite ceased to be comfortable. He got slowly to his feet, and said he must be going. She bade him "good-bye" absently, and he walked away, thinking that no other woman in Lowshire would have let him go after four o'clock without offering him a cup of tea. Just when she thought he was really gone she found he had come back and was standing before her. "Miss Georges," he began, awkwardly enough, "I dare say I have no business to offer advice, but you don't seem to know country-life very well. Never seen hay in cock before, I think you mentioned. So perhaps you would not think it cheek of me if I said anything." "About the hay?" "No, no. About what you've just told me." "About my father keeping a public-house?" "Yes. None of my business,"--he had become plum colour,--"but----" She looked blankly at him. She felt unable to give him sufficient attention to help him out. He had to flounder on without assistance. "If you mentioned that fact to anyone like Miss Black, it would go the round of the parish in no time." "Would that matter?" Roger was nonplussed for a moment. Her ignorance was colossal. "Some things are better not talked about," he said. "I have been telling you of poor Dick, but there were things in _his_ life that were better not talked about, so I did not mention them." His words transfixed her. Was it possible that he was warning her that he was aware of her adventure with Dick? At any rate, she gave him her full attention now. She raised her eyes to his and looked searchingly at him. And she saw with a certainty that nothing could shake, that he knew nothing, that he was only trying to save her from a petty annoyance. "The Miss Nevills have always been very close about your father," he added. "You can ask them, but I think you would find they wouldn't be much pleased if his--profession was known down here. It might vex them. So many vexatious things in this world that can't be helped, aren't there? And if there are any that _can_, so much the better. That was all I came back to say. I should not volunteer it, if I were you. It seemed to drop out so naturally that I thought you might have said the same to Miss Black."