Mrs. Heywood spoke rather to herself than to Mollie. “That makes the third time to-day,” she said pensively. Mollie spoke mysteriously. She too had forgotten her anger and impudence. She dropped her voice to a confidential tone. “The mistress is in a bad way, to my thinking. I’ve seen it coming on.” “Seen what coming on?” asked the elderly lady. “She sits brooding too much. Doesn’t even pitch into me when I break things. That’s a bad sign.” “A bad sign?” “I’ve noticed they’re all taken like this when they go wrong,” said the girl, speaking as one who had had a long experience of human nature in Intellectual Mansions, S. W. But these words aroused the old lady’s wrath. “How dare you!” said Mrs. Heywood. “Leave the room at once.” “I must tell the truth if I died for it,” said Mollie. The two women were silent for a moment, for just then a voice outside called, “Clare! Clare!” rather impatiently. “Oh, Lord!” said Mollie. “There’s the master.” “Clare!” called the voice. “Oh, confound the thing!” “I suppose he’s lost his stud again,” said Mollie. “He always does on club nights. I’d best be off.” She took up the tea-tray and left the room hurriedly, just as her master came in. It was Mr. Herbert Heywood, generally described by his neighbors as being “Something in the City”--a man of about thirty, slight, clean-shaven, boyish, good-looking, with nervous movements and extreme irritability. He was in evening clothes with his tie undone. “Plague take this tie!” he growled, making use of one or two un-Parliamentary expressions. Then he saw his mother and apologized. “Oh, I beg your pardon, mother. Where’s Clare?” Mrs. Heywood answered her son gloomily. “I think she’s gone to church again.” “Again?” said Herbert Heywood. “Why, dash it all--I beg your pardon, mother--she’s always going to church now. What’s the attraction?” “I think she must be unwell,” said Mrs. Hey-wood. “I’ve thought so for some time.” “Oh, nonsense! She’s perfectly fit.... See if you can tie this bow, mother.” Mrs. Heywood endeavored to do so, and during the process her son showed great impatience and made irritable grimaces. But he returned to the subject of his wife. “Perhaps her nerves are a bit wrong. Women are nervy creatures.... Oh, hang it all, mother, don’t strangle me!... As I tell her, what’s the good of having a park at your front door--Oh, thanks, that’s better.” He looked at himself in the glass, and dabbed his face with a handkerchief. “Of course I cut myself to-night. I always do when I go to the club.” “Herbert, dear,” said Mrs. Heywood rather nervously. “I--I suppose Clare is not going to bless you with a child?” “_In this flat_!” Herbert was startled and horrified. It was a great shock to him. He gazed round the little drawing-room rather wildly. “Oh, Lord!” he said presently, when he had calmed down a little. “Don’t suggest such a thing. Besides, she is not.” “Well, I’m nervous about her,” said Mrs. Heywood.