"Then there _is_ something in the stories!" she cried. "Of course, Frank told me there was nothing. And the Maxwells have not said a word. And _now_ I understand why Lady Kent has been dinning it into my ears--I could only be thankful Mrs. Allison was safe at church--that Ancoats should marry early. 'Oh! my dear, it's always been the only hope for them!'" Betty mimicked Lady Kent's deep voice and important manner: "'Why, there was the grandfather--_his_ wife had a time!--I could tell you things about _him_!--oh! and her too.--And even Henry Allison!--' There, of course, I stopped her." "Old ghoul!" said Naseby, in disgust. "So she knows. And yet--good Heavens! where does that charming girl come from?" He knocked the end off his cigarette, and returned it to his mouth with a rather unsteady hand. "Knows?--knows what?" said Betty. There was a pink flush, perhaps of alarm, on her pretty cheek, but her eyes said plainly that if there were risks she must run them. Naseby hesitated. The natural reticence of one young man about another held him back--and he was Ancoats's friend. But he liked Lady Madeleine, and her mother's ugly manoeuvres in the sight of gods and men filled him with a restless ill-temper. "You say the Maxwells have told you nothing?" he said at last. "But all the same I am pretty certain that Maxwell is here for nothing else. What on earth should he be doing in this _galere_ just now! Look at him and Fontenoy! They've been pacing that lime-walk for a good hour. No one ever saw such a spectacle before. Of course something's up!" Betty followed his eyes, and caught the figures of the two men between the trunks as they moved through the light and shadow of the lime-walk--Fontenoy's massive head sunk in his shoulders, his hands clasped behind his back; Maxwell's taller and alerter form beside him. Fontenoy had, in fact, arrived that morning from town, just too late to accompany Mrs. Allison and her flock to church; and Maxwell and he had been together since the moment when Ancoats, having brought his guest into the garden, had gone off himself on a walk with Tressady. "Ancoats and Tressady came back past here," Naseby went on. "Ancoats stood still, with his hands on his sides, and looked at those two. His expression was not amiable. 'Something hatching,' he said to Tressady. I suppose Ancoats got his sneer from his actor-friends--none of us could do it without practice. 'Shall we go and pull the chief out of that?' But they didn't go. Ancoats turned sulky, and went into the house by himself." "I'm glad I don't have to keep that youth straight," said Betty, devoutly. "Perhaps I don't care enough about him to try. But his mother's a darling saint!--and if he breaks her heart he ought to be hung." "She knows nothing--I believe--" said Naseby, quickly. "Strange!" cried Betty. "I wonder if it pays to be a saint. I shall know everything about _my_ boy when he's that age."