Upon the following morning Posy was alone in the sanctuary. Her father had installed recently a speaking-tube, communicating with James Miggott’s room, which was just behind the shop. Posy used this whenever the chance presented itself to exchange a few whispered words with her lover. She had just informed him that a billet had been popped into the lac cabinet. Also she had exchanged kisses through the tube, and perhaps on that account her eyes were sparkling more brightly than usual. She was hanging up the tube when Susan entered. "Thought I heard you talking just before I came in," said Susan. Posy, the hardened young sinner, never blushed as she answered lightly: "I was asking Jim through the tube where father was." Susan stared at her pensively. "Your dear father would be very much displeased if he heard you speaking of James Miggott as Jim. It’s too familiar." "Why?" "I’m not going to bandy words with you, Posy, because you do get the best of me, thanks to your fine schooling." Posy frowned. She was hearing too often of her "advantages." She said protestingly: "Mumsie, dear, don’t rub that in. I’m fed up with such vain repetitions from father. I didn’t ask him to send me to an expensive boarding-school. I believe he did it to annoy the Tomlins." This, we know, was not the reason, but there was some truth in it. Tom Tomlin had considered a governess at forty-five pounds per annum quite good enough to educate his three daughters. Susan laughed. Posy amused her when she talked with entire frankness. "Dear heart, what things you do say, to be sure! You were sent to Bexhill because there was too much Honeybunning. But it did annoy the Tomlins. I remember when your grandmother bought a small piano for me. We lived in a semi-detached. How the neighbours did tear their hair with envy and jealousy." Posy, clad in a neat pinafore, was rubbing the lacquer cabinet. Mrs. Quinney watched her fondly, thinking how young and vigorous the girl was. "Rub the lacquer gently, child. Coax the polish back." "Right O," said Posy. "Your poor father thinks the world of that cabinet." "So do I," said Posy demurely. Susan opened her eyes wider than usual, detecting real warmth in her daughter’s voice. "Do you? That’s your father cropping out in you. I’m beginning to believe that he prefers things to persons; so you’d better be warned in time. The beauty of this world ain’t to be found in sticks or stones." "Cheer up, mumsie! I shan’t devote my young life to either a stick or a stone." She laughed softly as Mabel Dredge came quietly in. Susan looked at her husband’s typist not too pleasantly. She was not jealous of the young woman, but it exasperated her to reflect that Mabel spent two hours at least every day with Quinney. She said crisply: "Mr. Quinney is out, Miss Dredge." "I know. The chairs from Christopher’s have just come."