"Your old crony must have mentioned the night we ran away with Weedon Moore's automobile." "Oh, yes," said Lydia. Her eyes were eloquent now. "She told me." "Did she tell you what she said to Weedon's crowd, to turn them round like a flock of sheep and bring them over to us?" "Oh, yes, she told me." "What was it?" But Lydia again looked obstinate, though she ventured a little plea of her own. "Jeff, you must go into politics." "Not on your life." "The way is all prepared." "Who prepared it? Madame Beattie?" "You are going," said Lydia, this irrepressibly and against her judgment, "to be the most popular man in Addington." "Gammon!" This he didn't think very much of. If this was how Lydia and Madame Beattie spent their hours of talk, let them, the innocents. It did nobody harm. But he was still conscious of a strong desire: to protect Lydia, in her child's innocence, from evil. He wondered if she were not busy enough, that she had time to take up Madame Beattie. Yet she and Anne seemed as industrious as little ants. "Lydia," said he, "what if I should have an Italian fruit-seller come up here to the house and teach Italian to you and me--and maybe Anne?" "Andrea?" she asked. "Do you know him?" "Madame Beattie does." She coloured slightly, as if all Madame Beattie's little secrets were to be guarded. "We'll have him up here if he'll come, and we'll learn to pass the bread in Italian. Shall we?" "I'd love to," said Lydia. "We're learning now, Anne and I." "Of Andrea?" "Oh, no. But we're picking up words as fast as we can, all kinds of dialects. From the classes, you know, Miss Amabel's classes. It's ridiculous to be seeing these foreigners twice a week and not understand them or not have them half understand us." "It's ridiculous anyway," said Jeffrey absently. He was regarding the shine on Lydia's brown hair. "What's the use of Addington's being overrun with Italy and Greece and Poland and Russia? We could get men enough to work in the shops, good straight stock." "Well," said Lydia conclusively, "we've got them now. They're here. So we might as well learn to understand them and make them understand us." Jeff smiled at her, the little soft young thing who seemed so practical. Lydia looked like a child, but she spoke like the calm house mother who had had quartered on her a larger family than the house would hold and yet knew the invaders must be accommodated in decent comfort somewhere. He sat there and stared at her until she grew red and fidgety. He seemed to be questioning something in her inner mind. "What is it?" she asked.