"And I didn't make much of him, after all!" she told Mother and Aunt Gerty. "Lady Scilly had squeezed him nearly dry. He didn't trust women any more, always imagined they wanted money. And then dangled an empty purse at them, metaphorically. Poor old man, it is a shame to destroy any one--even a millionaire's--confidence in human nature. She borrows of every one, even the masseuse and the charwoman, my dear, it's quite awful! That poor, pretty young Hermyre! I was quite pleased when your sweet innocent daughter rescued him from the wiles of Scilly, and perhaps Charybdis--who knows? He looked weak!" "And so secured a weak child to look after him and strengthen his hands!" said Mother. It is no use minding Mrs. Tommy, she isn't "quite eighteen carat," Aunt Gerty says, or else she would surely not discuss a woman's own son-in-law to her face. But, she is a journalist, and journalists know no laws of consanguinity or decency even. If one is to get any good whatever out of the press, one must accept it with all its inconveniences, and Aunt Gerty and Mother think everything of the press in these days. They ask Mrs. Ptomaine to dinner continually, and Mr. Freddy Cook to meet her. And Mr. Aix as a standing dish, and Aunt Gerty of course. Then they make a lot of noise and smoke all over the house except the study. Mother won't let them go in there at all while George is away. I hear them talking between the puffs-- "You can engage to work so and so, eh?" or "Have you got thingumbob?" Mr. Aix is writing a play. He brings the acts over here as he writes them, and gets Mother to speak the woman's part for him, so that he sees how it goes. He says Mother is a great dear, and he tells her continually how she helps him, how she puts the right interpretation on him at every turn. I never should have thought Mr. Aix difficult to understand, but then a man has to be very modest to realize that he takes no understanding and is as plain as a pike-staff. And as Mr. Aix always speaks the brutal truth--he can't wrap anything up--he is as "crude as the day," so George often says--I don't see Mother's cleverness. They talk of The Play as if it was a baby. "Mustn't christen it before it is brought into the world," and "One thing you can confidently predict about it, it can't be born prematurely!" and so on. They use the study in the mornings, and Mr. Aix sits in George's swivel-chair, and Mother takes the floor in front of him. She reads the woman's part out aloud and he criticises her. She must do it pretty well, for he often calls out, "Oh, you darling!" when she has said a particular piece. "What a divine accent you give it!" "That will knock them!" "Wicked to hide such a talent!" and praise like that. He never asks Aunt Gerty to read any, though she is a real actress and sits there and criticises Mother all the time. "Pooh, pooh!" says Mr. Aix, "leave her to her intuitions! You battered professionals don't know the value of a new note."