"Oh, it's quite all right, Lord St. Leath," said Miss Milton. "What a fine animal!" "Yes, he is," said Johnny, rescuing the stocking. "He's as strong as Lucifer. Here, Andrew, you devil, I'll break every bone in your body." During this little scene Johnny had smiled at Joan, and in so pleasant a way that she was compelled to smile back at him. "How do you do, Miss Brandon?" He had recalled Andrew now, and the dog was slobbering happily at his feet. "Jolly day, isn't it?" "Yes," said Joan, and stood there awkwardly, feeling that she ought to go but not knowing quite how to do so. He also seemed embarrassed, and turned abruptly to Miss Milton. "I say, look here.... Mother asked me to come in and get that book you promised her. What's the name of the thing?...I've got it written down." He fumbled in his pocket and produced a bit of paper. "Here it is. _Sentimental Tommy_, by a man called Barrie. Silly name, but mother's always reading the most awful stuff." Joan turned towards Miss Milton. "How funny!" she said. "That's the book I've just been asking for. It's out." Miss Milton's face was a curious purple. "Well, that's odd," said Johnny. "Mother told me that you'd sent her a line to say it was in whenever she sent for it." "It's been out three months," said Joan, staring now straight into Miss Milton's angry eyes. "I've been keeping..." said Miss Milton. "That is, there's a special copy.... Lady St. Leath specially asked----" "Is it in, or isn't it?" asked Johnny. "There _is_ a copy, Lord St. Leath----" With confused fingers Miss Milton searched in a drawer. She produced the book. "You told me," said Joan, forgetting now in her anger St. Leath and all the world, "that there wouldn't he a copy for weeks. If you'd told me you were keeping one for St. Leath, that would have been different. You shouldn't have told me a lie." "Do you mean to say," said Johnny, opening his eyes very widely indeed, "that you refused this copy to Miss Brandon?" "Certainly," said Miss Milton, breathing very hard as though she had been running a long distance. "I was keeping it for your mother." "Well, I'm damned," said Johnny. "I beg your pardon, Miss Brandon,...but I never heard such a thing. Does my mother pay a larger subscription than other people?" "Certainly not." "Then what right had you to tell Miss Brandon a lie?" Miss Milton, in spite of long training in the kind of warfare attaching, of necessity, to Circulating Libraries, was very near to tears--also murder. She would have been delighted to pierce Joan's heart with a bright stiletto, had such a weapon been handy. She saw the softest, easiest, idlest job in the world slipping out of her fingers; she saw herself, a desolate and haggard virgin, begging her bread on the Polchester streets. She saw...but never mind her visions. They were terrible ones. She had recourse to her only defence. "If I have misunderstood my duty," she said in a trembling voice, "there is the Library Committee."