Judson came out of the stable. Buck gave him a curt order, and the trap moved away. Its departure left Louie standing by the little bench outside the stable door. Buck had taken a step towards her. He was murmuring something quite ridiculous--something about "strictly for the gentry." Perhaps he remembered that had his little girl been a little boy he would have given her instruction for nothing at the Sparring Academy in Bruton Street. All in a moment he passed his arm about Louie. Scarisbrick or not, she was going to be a Causton and his for once--just for once. In an hour he might be calling her "m'm" again, but just for once--his face was beautiful. "That little girl," he said foolishly, holding her with as gentle a fear as if she had been still in her cradle. Louie's answer was to faint suddenly on his breast. * * * * * But of the Molyneux Arms in a moment. A word about Mortlake Road first. Two houses had been thrown into one to form the establishment at which Louie had now resided for a week. Officially it was a nursing home; actually it accepted declared invalids and quite well but unrobust lodgers alike. Miss Cora Mayville "ran" it; her cousin, Miss Dot Mayville, was "sister," and from four to eight uniformed nurses came and went continually. None of them had theories, moral, social, or of any other description; to them things were as they were. Nurse Meekins made Louie's bed as who should say, "Helpers of people in trouble do not go beyond their proper business"; Nurse Chalmers brought her letters or called her to dinner in the narrowminded spirit of one who leaves the systematics of charity to others. All were reprehensibly incurious and shockingly affectionate, and so far was Louie's case from being peculiar that, in the eyes of the law at any rate, Miss Dot Mayville was herself twice a parent. Twice (when, from reasons Lord Moone could have explained, the real parents had refused to do so) she had signed the birth-certificates of undesired infants. This irregularity the registrar for the district held perpetually over her head. She laughed, and held other things over his head in return. They were engaged to be married. It was to this retreat that Buck drove Louie back that January evening, cutting "Richards, seven" without compunction. Poor Chaff had been sent off soon after lunch; there was somebody else to fetch and despatch his Mops now. Buck lifted Louie from the trap and rang the bell of one of the two brass-plated doors. A German youth dressed as a waiter appeared, and Buck bade him hold the horse. Then he went with Louie up to her room. He took off her hat and coat for her; he seemed unable to leave her. He had learned how it was with her.