“Our William is a particularly robust child. He cannot live less than ninety years. So I’m sure, Tom, that Florrie has no need to worry about him,” said Aunt Lavvy, who, except on the subject of Hal and the bank and Mr. Fennimore’s impending visit, was just as sweet and nice as she had ever been. The midday dinner-gong sounded brazenly. And William, who felt better, appeared in a dressing-gown to ask if he might come down to dinner. “I believe the little Busy-Gnomes have been in my room this morning,” Aunt Lavvy smiled at Lottie, who quivered with pleasure up to the very bow at the crest of her head. For a blissful instant it seemed to her, as it had also seemed to Grace and Miss Roberts after “talking it over,” that the problem was solved by dint of single effort. But when the roast beef and apple-tart were over, and after the two servants had cleared away the plates ready for fruit, and left the room, the master of the house startlingly got up and cleared his throat--“I want to say something to you all....” He went on to suggest, into a circle of stricken silence, that it was Hal’s duty to publicly apologize to their dear Aunt Lavvy for ... (Was he going to put it--actually--into words?... No, he couldn’t! he couldn’t! Ursula’s breath was held back by an iron pressure of suspense.) “----for the injury he has recently done her. Now, my son,” genially not disowning him. None of them had expected this. The upset had not yet been acknowledged in so many words as existent, except between groups of two or three. Now, in defiance of the sore atmosphere, it was thrown on to the dining-room table. Mr. Maxwell’s motive was to propitiate. The roast beef had stimulated his imagination; and while showing him more luridly than ever how dreadful would be the results to his own prestige, and to Hal’s future, if Aunt Lavvy told the whole truth to Fennimore, it likewise suggested to him--falsely--that all the dear little lady wanted to appease her was probably a slight testimony to her importance in front of them all. Hal, victim of the strategical error, had never dreamt he was to be trapped into active ignominy. It seemed to him, as it does to most people at one or another nightmare of their lives, that the moment was so awful that it simply could not really exist, could not lead to another as bad. He heard himself stumble out a rather shaky: “Sorry, Aunt Lavvy, if I ... if I ...” then, fiercely self-despising, managed a gruffer, firmer voice, and stood up straight, pushing back his chair: “I’m sorry if I was a rotter to keep back that quid, Aunt Lavvy.” “If?” repeated Aunt Lavvy, sadly. “If? Oh, Hal!” “I didn’t mean ‘if.’ I just meant that I was sorry.” He looked very white, and his forehead was damp with sweat. Even Stanley Watson pitied him in the pillory, and threw off a magnanimous: “Oh, leave the boy alone now.”