"Quite--" and he lay back in his very comfortable chair and devoured a bit of brown bread and butter. "The whole thing is practically finished. Your secretary very kindly said she would complete alone the last directions, which she took down in shorthand." "Then it will be done, G.; she is a young person of her word." Mr. Strobridge did not become expansive; it was fortunate, he thought, that he had never yet shown any interest in Katherine Bush, because very little escaped his aunt's perceptions. She was already wondering what caused his absence of mind. He surely was not being so foolish as to have allowed himself to become seriously enamoured of Läo Delemar! Her precious Gerard! This must be ascertained at once. "Läo telephoned just now that she would not come to the play to-night--Really, the caprices of these pretty women are quite intolerable, throwing one over at a moment's notice--masses of selfishness and conceit." "Yes,--aren't they?" languidly. This did not sound a lover's disappointment, but perhaps he was prepared for her news, and Läo's proposed absence was what caused his depression. "What excuse has she given you?" He looked surprised. "None. I did not know that she had chucked; did she give any reason?" "Some nonsense about a friend of her mother's having turned up. I was so annoyed that I put the receiver down." "You must console me, _carina_," and he leaned forward and took his aunt's fat hand. "Läo would never be missed if a man might count upon you for his partner." "Flatterer!" but she smiled complacently. "The Colvins can both talk to Tom Hawthorne then. I had intended Henry Colvin to be my portion; he is a bright creature, and distracted me at dinner last week--but I am tired, and I always prefer you, G. Ah! if you had only been my son!" "It would have destroyed the happiest of relationships in the world--and you know it. A son you could overscold--a mother I could overrespect--Let us thank Heaven for the charming courtesy tie that we enjoy." "I wish you would have a son, though, G.; you know I am perfectly indifferent to Emmeline's boy." "I shall never have any Strobridge children, Seraphim. Beatrice would faint at the idea. We only touched upon domestic pretences and got them all over with the very lightest effort in the first week. Besides, one would not want a Thorvil child--there is a mad streak in the whole family, I have often thought. I am much interested in heredity." He did not add how greatly the afternoon had augmented this interest! "Yes--did you chance to notice my secretary's hands?--The mother must have had a lover, of course." "I don't think so--they seldom do in that class. They become so intolerably unattractive at once; nothing human could come up to the scratch. It is just a freak, or a harking back--many of the exquisitely aristocratic features one finds in old villagers, for instance, date from the _droit de seigneur_."