It was a terrific price to pay; their troubled faces mirrored the conflict of decision. David found solution. In his slow, solemn voice, “You kiss him first,” he said. Miss Humfray always took their medicine first, and David argued from the one evil necessity to this other. Mr. Bob Chater laughed delightedly. “That's a brilliant idea!” he cried; came two strides towards Mary; put a hand upon her arm. So sudden, so unexpected was his movement, that by the narrowest chance only did she escape his purpose. A jerk of her head, and he had mouthed at the air two inches from her face. She shook her arm free. “Oh!” she cried; and in the exclamation there was that which would have given a nicer man pause. Mr. Bob Chater was nothing abashed. A handsome face and a bold air had made conquests easy to him. It was an axiom of his that a girl who worked for her living by that fact proclaimed flirtation to be agreeable to her--at all events with such as he. Chance had so shaped affairs that this was the first time his theory had found disproof. He saw she was offended; so much the more tickling; conquest was thereby the more enticing. He laughed; said he was only “rotting.” Mary did not reply. The command to kiss their brother went by default; she hurried her charges through the door to the adjoining night nursery. When they were started upon undressing she came back. “You're going to let me see you tub them?” Bob asked her. Busy replacing toys in cupboards, she did not reply. “You're not angry, are you?” She gave him no answer. Bob Chater discarded the laugh from his tone. “If you are angry, I'm very sorry. You must have known I was only fooling. It was only to make the kids laugh.” So far as was possible she kept her back to him. The continued slight pricked him. His voice hardened. “When I have the grace to apologise, I think you might have the grace to accept it.” Mary said in low tones: “If you meant only to make them laugh, of course I believe you. It is all right.” “Good. Well, now, may I see them tubbed?” “I have told you I would rather not.” “Dash it all, Miss Humfray, you're rather unkind, aren't, you? Here have I been away nearly two years--I've been travelling on the Continent for the firm-you know that, don't you?” She said she had heard Mr. and Mrs. Chater talking of it. “Well, and yet you won't let me come near my darling little sister and my sweet little brother to tell 'em all about it?” “But I'm not keeping you from them, Mr. Chater. You have had plenty of time.” “Time! Why, I only got back yesterday!” “You have been in here this afternoon.” “Ah, they were shy. They're better when you are here.” She had finished her task, and she turned to him. “Mr. Chater, you know I could not keep David and Angela from you even if I dreamed of doing such a thing. Only, I say I would rather you did not come in while I bath them, that is all.” “Yes, but why?” “Mrs. Chater would not like it for one thing, I feel sure.”