"Well, it's about Rose's wife that I want to speak to you." Barry looked searchingly at his friend, and reading in the bright eyes nothing of the cheap cynicism with which some men might have greeted the announcement, he went on quickly. "The fact is, she wants someone to give her a helping hand." "Someone--apart from her husband?" "Yes. You see, she's only a kid and a jolly pretty one. Looks like a schoolgirl----?" "Stay a moment." Herrick laid down his pipe. "Is Mrs. Rose a little dark girl, with very bright eyes and a lot of black hair?" "That's she. You've met her, then?" "Well, not exactly. Fact is, I have seen a young woman answering to that description wandering on the towing-path early in the morning once or twice; and I was a little puzzled to know who she might be." "Well, that's Mrs. Rose. Now the fact is"--Barry grew red suddenly as he realized that his interference was quite unauthorized--"I think she wants a friend, someone to look after her a bit." "Why? Is she ... er ... what _is_ she?" "She is very young." Barry spoke deliberately now, having made up his mind to proceed. "And although she is a perfect little lady in her way"--thus unconsciously endorsing Kate's verdict--"she has never been used to the sort of life she will have to lead down here. To tell the truth--I know it's safe with you, Jim--she was our typist in the office before her marriage." "I see. And Rose fell in love with her?" "Y ... yes." Even to Herrick, Barry could not give away the secret of Owen's proposal. "Anyway, he married her, and brought her here; and to-day I was witness to a curious little scene in her house." "I'm all attention, Barry." "Well, Rose is away for the day, and Mrs. Rose invited a girl-cousin down for the afternoon; and to do honour to her, I imagine, she had provided a sumptuous tea, including shrimps and one of those wobbly white things that you get at lunch." "I see. Well?" "Well, we--Mrs. Anstey, Olive and I--chose to pay a call to-day; and when, after a little hesitation, Mrs. Rose asked us to have some tea, we were taken into the dining-room, where these festal delicacies were laid out." "And then?" "Well, it would have been all right--Mrs. Anstey is a dear, and Olive of course is a ripper--and we'd have had a very jolly little party, but unfortunately in the middle of it who should arrive but Lady Martin and that terrible daughter of hers." "Lady Martin of soap fame?" "The same. Well, you know what an utter snob the woman is. In two minutes she had Toni--Mrs. Rose--reduced to a jelly--simply by sneering at everything." "Including the--shrimps?" "Yes. You know shrimps are--well--a bit _vulgar_, aren't they?" For a second there was silence. Then Herrick stretched out his hand for his pipe and spoke slowly in the intervals of filling the bowl.