Nona stood facing him; their eyes met, and he turned away with a shrug to reach for a match. "I believed it because, just afterward, the servants told me that Lita had left, and as they said you'd gone with her I supposed you'd taken her to Ardwin's, not knowing that I meant to join her there." "Ah; I see." He lit the cigarette and puffed at it for a moment or two, deliberately. "You're quite right to think she needs looking after," he began again, in a changed tone. "Somebody's got to take on the job, since her husband seems to have washed his hands of it." "Father! You know perfectly well that if Jim took on that job--running after Lita all night from one cabaret to another--he'd lose the other, the one that keeps them going. Nobody could carry on both." "Hullo, spitfire! Hands off our brother!" "Rather." She leaned against the table, her eyes still on him. "And when Ardwin told me about this Klawhammer film--didn't Lita mention it to you?" He appeared to consider. "She did say Ardwin was bothering her about something of the kind; so when I found Jim had gone I took her home myself." "Ah--you took her home?" Manford, settling himself back in his armchair, met the surprise in her voice unconcernedly. "Why, of course. Did you really see me letting her make a show of herself? Sorry you think that's my way of looking after her." Nona, perched on the arm of his chair, enclosed him in a happy hug. "You goose, you!" she sighed; but the epithet was not for her father. She poured herself a glass of cherry brandy, dropped a kiss on his thinning hair, and ran up to her room humming Miss Jossie Keiler's jazz-tune. Perhaps after all it wasn't such a rotten world. VIII