“Time you were back in bed again, Sweet William,” was all she said. “And you, too, Lottie.” “I was just saying,” William repeated, with a subtle relevance which was almost incredible, considering his years, “that I shouldn’t be s’prised if Bunny went to Oxford now.” [X] THE Laburnums next morning resembled a fever-patient whose temperature has inexplicably rushed up in the night. Everybody in the disturbed household had either lain awake, quietly working up the dimensions of their grievance, viewed from all four points of the compass; or else had awoken with a start to remember that their average life was now occupied by a bogey of horror, which, during the few hours’ oblivion, had swelled to a frightfulness out of all proportion. Aunt Lavvy’s bogey was “What must the Bank think of Me.” She lay and chafed at the thought that she had not yet freed herself, in the Bank’s eyes, from all complicity with the theft of the missing pound note. A good many little spinsters, with an otherwise well-balanced set of values, have this curiously over-rated respect for all male-run institutions connected with capital, income, investments, dividends and cheques. It struck her, while the rain spattered at the window, and the wind creaked the boughs, that she had probably been thrust--through Hal--nearer than ever before to the outer edge of that safe circle which enrings the Law abiding. Her impeccable name had perished.... She was entangled in an Unpleasant Affair with the Bank.... Oh, Mr. Fennimore must be told when he came. She would explain the whole situation to him, down to the final details. It was urgent.... She was not afraid, but angry, very angry. Sheer impertinence of Nina to have urged her so impatiently to save Hal at all costs. Hal, indeed!--and unless she looked after her own good name, who would do it for her? The Maxwell children did not really love her, as they always pretended to do; they merely used her as an auntly convenience. And now they all turned upon her as the cause of trouble, even though it was obviously hers and not theirs to be resentful and vindictive.... But that was always the way, living with families not your own.... She ought to have taken a flat at the time, and not heeded the Maxwells’ financial difficulties. A charming, bijou flat--then she could have owned a parma and primrose boudoir as well as a bedroom---- Ursula, who had been dreaming, woke up with a thumping heart, and stretched out her hand to fumble for the matches.... She wanted sight of dear familiar things to lull this dreadful uneasiness that sleep and the darkness and memory of yesterday had smuggled into the room.