Char cast up her eyes in a sort of desperation, and went into the further half of the drawing-room, where Miss Bruce sat, just hearing her mother say gently: "Look, Piers, I shall take your castle." "Brucey," said Char, "I think they'll drive me mad. I know my work is nothing, really--such a tiny, infinitesimal part of a great whole--but if I could only get a _little_ sympathy. It does seem so extraordinary, when one has been working all day, giving one's whole self to it all, and then to come back to this sort of atmosphere!" Miss Bruce was perhaps the only person with whom Char was absolutely unreserved. In younger days Miss Bruce had been her adoring governess, and the old relations still existed between them. Char knew that Miss Bruce had always thought Lady Vivian's management of her only child terribly injudicious, and that in the prolonged antagonism between herself and her mother Miss Bruce's silent loyalty had always ranged itself on Char's side. "It's very hard on you, my dear," she sighed. "But I have been afraid lately--have you noticed, I wonder?" "What?" "Sir Piers seems to me to be failing; he is so much deafer, so much more dependent on Lady Vivian." "He's always _that_," said Char. "I think it's only the beginning of the winter, Brucey. He always feels the cold weather." But a very little while later Miss Bruce's view received unexpected corroboration. Three Sundays later, when the weather had grown colder than ever, and Char was, as usual, spending the afternoon and evening at the Depôt, Mrs. Willoughby paid a call at Plessing. She was followed into the room, with almost equal unwillingness, by her husband and a small, immensely stout Pekinese dog, with bulging eyes and a quick, incessant bark that only Mrs. Willoughby's voice could dominate. "Darling Joanna!" she shrieked. "Puffles, wicked, wicked boy, be quiet! Isn't this an invasion? But my Lewis did so want--I shall smack 'oo if 'oo isn't quiet directly. _Do_ you mind this little brown boy, who goes _everywhere_ with his mammy? I knew you'd love him if you saw him--but _such_ a noise! Lewis, tell this naughty Puff his mother can't hear herself speak." "Down, sir!" said Lewis, in tones which might have quelled a mastiff with hydrophobia. Puff waddled for refuge to his mistress, who immediately gathered him on to her lap as she sank on to the sofa. "Did 'oo daddy speak in a big rough voice, and frighten the poor little manikin?" she inquired solicitously. "Isn't he _rather_ twee, Joanna?" "I've not seen it before," said Joanna, in tones more civil than enthusiastic. "It!" screamed Lesbia. "She calls 'oo _it_, my Puffles! as though he wasn't the sweetest little brown boy in the whole world. It! You've hurt his little feelings too dreadfully, my dear--look at him sulking!" Puff had composed himself into a sort of dribbling torpor. "That dog doesn't get enough exercise," said Major Willoughby suddenly, fixing his eyes upon his hostess.