She hesitated a moment, and I wondered what she could possibly say. She did not speak--I could see--the first words that rose to her lips; she repeated what she had said a few minutes before. “Oh, of course he ‘s very clever!” And with this she got up; her husband and little boy had reappeared. Mrs. Ambient left me and went to meet them; she stopped and had a few words with her husband, which I did not hear, and which ended in her taking the child by the hand and returning to the house with him. Her husband joined me in a moment, looking, I thought, the least bit conscious and constrained, and said that if I would come in with him he would show me my room. In looking back upon these first moments of my visit to him, I find it important to avoid the error of appearing to have understood his situation from the first, and to have seen in him the signs of things which I learnt only afterwards. This later knowledge throws a backward light, and makes me forget that at least on the occasion of which I am speaking now (I mean that first afternoon), Mark Ambient struck me as a fortunate man. Allowing for this, I think he was rather silent and irresponsive as we walked back to the house, though I remember well the answer he made to a remark of mine in relation to his child. “That’s an extraordinary little boy of yours,” I said. “I have never seen such a child.” “Why do you call him extraordinary?” “He’s so beautiful, so fascinating. He’s like a little work of art.” He turned quickly, grasping my arm an instant. “Oh, don’t call him that, or you ‘ll--you ‘ll--!” And in his hesitation he broke off suddenly, laughing at my surprise. But immediately afterwards he added, “You will make his little future very difficult.” I declared that I wouldn’t for the world take any liberties with his little future--it seemed to me to hang by threads of such delicacy. I should only be highly interested in watching it. “You Americans are very sharp,” said Ambient “You notice more things than we do.” “Ah, if you want visitors who are not struck with you, you should n’t ask me down here!” He showed me my room, a little bower of chintz, with open windows where the light was green, and before he left me he said irrelevantly, “As for my little boy, you know, we shall probably kill him between us, before wo have done with him!” And he made this assertion as if he really believed it, without any appearance of jest, with his fine, near-sighted, expressive eyes looking straight into mine. “Do you mean by spoiling him?” “No; by fighting for him!” “You had better give him to me to keep for you,” I said. “Let me remove the apple of discord.” I laughed, of course, but he had the air of being perfectly serious. “It would be quite the best thing we could do. I should be quite ready to do it.” “I am greatly obliged to you for your confidence.”