Terence, the son, was walking the hospitals, kept a collection of bones in his coat pocket, and looked upon life as a huge jest organised for his special benefit; loyally returning the compliment by playing jests himself on every available opportunity. In holiday time, he was most useful as a companion to the two scholars with whom he was a prime favourite, but in term time Lessing regarded him with mitigated favour. As a conversationalist he preferred the father; as a confidante, the mother; where Delia was concerned he preferred a _tete-a-tete_. Terence was a very good sort, but he was apt to be decidedly _de trop_. On the evening of the day on which he had been made a director of his company, Lessing took his way to the corner house, and found the amiable quartette disporting themselves after their separate ways in the comfortable sitting-room which was their favourite evening resort. Mr Gordon was reading the latest treatise on Oriental china. Mrs Gordon was knitting mufflers for deep-sea fishermen, and lending an appreciative ear to Delia, who, seated at the grand piano, was singing ballads in a very small but penetratingly sweet voice. It was part of Delia's minxiness that she elected to sing songs intended for masculine lovers, wherein were set forth panegyrics which might most aptly be applied to herself. On this occasion she was declaiming that "My love is like a red, red rose that's newly blown in June. Oh, my love's like a mel-o-dy that's sweetly played in tune"; and so sweet was the air, so sweet the rose-like bloom of her own youth, that her father's eyes strayed continuously from his pages, and rested on her with an admiration reverent in its intensity. "She is too beautiful, too pure for this world"; his eyes seemed to say. "Can it be possible that she is really my own daughter?" The mother's eyes strayed also, but there was no reverence in her gaze. She had been a minx herself. Terence was reading the latest popular thriller, and from time to time diversifying the entertainment by kicking one of his patent leather pumps into the air, and adroitly fitting his toes into it on its return journey, an accomplishment on which he had wasted golden hours. They all looked up and smiled a welcome as Val Lessing entered and went round the room greeting each member of the family in turn. "Good evening, Mrs Gordon. Good evening, sir. Delia, please! Don't let me interrupt."