"They didn't happen to see me whilst I was talking with you. But, in any case," added Franks, "they wouldn't have asked. They're well-bred people, you know--really ladies. I suspect you've had a different idea of them. Wasn't that why you wouldn't let me introduce you?" "Not at all," answered Will, with a forced laugh. "I've no doubt of their ladyhood." "The fact of the matter is," continued the other, crossing and uncrossing, and re-crossing his legs in nervous restlessness, "that I've been seeing them now and then since I told you I was going to call there. You guess why? It isn't Mrs. Cross, depend upon it." "Mrs. Cross's tea, perhaps?" said Will, with a hard grin. "Not exactly. It's the worst tea I ever tasted. I must advise her to change her grocer." Warburton exploded in a roar of laughter, and cried, as Franks stared wonderingly at him: "You'll never make a better joke in your life than that." "Shows what I can do when I try," answered the artist. "However, the tea is shockingly bad." "What can you expect for one and sevenpence halfpenny per pound?" cried Will. "How do _you_ know what she pays?" Warburton's answer was another peal of merriment. "Well, I shouldn't wonder," Franks went on. "The fact is, you know, they're very poor. It's a miserable sort of a life for a girl like Bertha Cross. She's clever, in her way; did you ever see any of her work? Children's book-illustrating? It's more than passable, I assure you. But of course she's wretchedly paid. Apart from that, a really nice girl." "So this is what you had to tell me?" said Warburton, in a subdued voice, when the speaker hesitated. "I wanted to talk about it, old man, that's the truth." Franks accompanied these words with a shy smiling look of such friendly appeal that Will felt his hard and surly humour begin to soften, and something of the old geniality stirring under the dull weight that had so long oppressed him. "I suppose it's settled," he asked, staring at the fire. "Settled? How?" "When it comes to meetings at Kew Gardens--" "Oh don't misunderstand," exclaimed Franks nervously, "I told you that it was with the mother I made the appointment--not with Bertha herself. I'm quite sure Bertha never heard a word of it." "Well, it comes to the same thing." "Not at all! I half wish it did." "Half?" asked Warburton, with a quick glance.