'How such an affectionate well-mannered young woman could be led so far astray is inexplicable to me--inexplicable,' he observed to Mrs. Bonfill. Mrs. Bonfill endorsed his bewilderment with a helpless wave of her hand. 'There is good in her,' he announced. 'She will respond to Mortimer's influence.' And the good gentleman began to make things a little easier for Trix within the narrow sphere of his ability. Nobody, of course, had ever told him that the sphere was narrow, and he had not discovered it; his small semi-surreptitious indulgences were bestowed with a princely flourish. Lady Barmouth was inexorable; she was Mervyn's outraged mother. She had, moreover, the acuteness to discern one of the ideas that lay in Trix's mind and stiffened it to endurance. 'Now is the time to mould her,' she said to Mrs. Bonfill. 'It would not perhaps be so easy presently.' Mrs. Bonfill knew what 'presently' meant, and thought that her friend was probably right. 'But once we imbue her with our feeling about things, she will keep it. At present she is receptive.' 'I think she is,' agreed Mrs. Bonfill, who had just an occasional pang of pity for Trix's extreme receptivity and the ample advantage taken of it. Trix had received a brief note from Fricker, saying that he was doing his best to carry out her instructions, and hoped to be able to arrange matters satisfactorily, although he must obviously be hampered in some degree by the peremptory nature of her request. Trix hardly saw why this was obvious, but, if obvious, at any rate it was also quite inevitable. She certainly did not realise what an excellent excuse she had equipped Mr. Fricker with if he sold her shares at a loss. But apparently he had not sold them, at least no news came to that effect; hope that he was waiting to effect a great _coup_ still shot in one encouraging streak across the deadly weariness of being imbued with the Barmouth feeling about things. Not once a day, but once every hour at least, did she recall that unregenerate impulse of Lady Blixworth's, confessed to at this very Barslett, and accord it her heartiest sympathy. 'But I will stick to it,' she said to herself grimly. Her pluck was in arms; her time would come; for the present all hung on Fricker.