"Well, it's like this, Nesta. I hope you won't tell her I told you. She's sensitive about it, poor girl. It all happened before you and I were married. Ann was much younger then. You know what schoolgirls are, kind of foolish and sentimental. It was my fault really, I ought to have . . ." "Good Heavens, Peter! What are you trying to tell me?" "She was only a child." Mrs. Pett rose in slow horror. "Peter! Tell me! Don't try to break it gently." "Ann wrote a book of poetry and I had it published for her." Mrs. Pett sank back in her chair. "Oh!" she said--it would have been hard to say whether with relief or disappointment. "Whatever did you make such a fuss for? Why did you want to be so mysterious?" "It was all my fault, really," proceeded Mr. Pett. "I ought to have known better. All I thought of at the time was that it would please the child to see the poems in print and be able to give the book to her friends. She did give it to her friends," he went on ruefully, "and ever since she's been trying to live it down. I've seen her bite a young fellow's head off when he tried to make a grand-stand play with her by quoting her poems which he'd found in his sister's book-shelf." "But, in the name of goodness, what has all this to do with young Crocker?" "Why, it was this way. Most of the papers just gave Ann's book a mention among 'Volumes Received,' or a couple of lines that didn't amount to anything, but the _Chronicle_ saw a Sunday feature in it, as Ann was going about a lot then and was a well-known society girl. They sent this Crocker boy to get an interview from her, all about her methods of work and inspirations and what not. We never suspected it wasn't the straight goods. Why, that very evening I mailed an order for a hundred copies to be sent to me when the thing appeared. And--" pinkness came upon Mr. Pett at the recollection "it was just a josh from start to finish. The young hound made a joke of the poems and what Ann had told him about her inspirations and quoted bits of the poems just to kid the life out of them. . . . I thought Ann would never get over it. Well, it doesn't worry her any more--she's grown out of the school-girl stage--but you can bet she isn't going to get up and give three cheers and a tiger if you bring young Crocker to live in the same house." "Utterly ridiculous!" said Mrs. Pett. "I certainly do not intend to alter my plans because of a trivial incident that happened years ago. We will sail on Wednesday." "Very well, my dear," said Mr. Pett resignedly. "Just as you say. Er--just you and I?" "And Ogden, of course." Mr. Pett controlled a facial spasm with a powerful effort of the will. He had feared this.