“I don’t know about translating; it’s wretchedly paid.”

“I’m glad to earn what I can,” said Mrs. Moreen with prodigious virtue.

“You ought to tell me who you do it for.”  Pemberton paused a moment, and she said nothing; so he added:  “I’ve tried to turn off some little sketches, but the magazines won’t have them—­they’re declined with thanks.”

“You see then you’re not such a phoenix,” his visitor pointedly smiled—­“to pretend to abilities you’re sacrificing for our sake.”

“I haven’t time to do things properly,” he ruefully went on.  Then as it came over him that he was almost abjectly good-natured to give these explanations he added:  “If I stay on longer it must be on one condition—­that Morgan shall know distinctly on what footing I am.”

Mrs. Moreen demurred.  “Surely you don’t want to show off to a child?”

“To show you off, do you mean?”

Again she cast about, but this time it was to produce a still finer flower.  “And you talk of blackmail!”

“You can easily prevent it,” said Pemberton.

“And you talk of practising on fears,” she bravely pushed on.

“Yes, there’s no doubt I’m a great scoundrel.”

His patroness met his eyes—­it was clear she was in straits.  Then she thrust out her money at him.  “Mr. Moreen desired me to give you this on account.”

“I’m much obliged to Mr. Moreen, but we have no account.”

“You won’t take it?”

“That leaves me more free,” said Pemberton.

“To poison my darling’s mind?” groaned Mrs. Moreen.

“Oh your darling’s mind—!” the young man laughed.

She fixed him a moment, and he thought she was going to break out tormentedly, pleadingly:  “For God’s sake, tell me what is in it!” But she checked this impulse—­another was stronger.  She pocketed the money—­the crudity of the alternative was comical—­and swept out of the room with the desperate concession:  “You may tell him any horror you like!”

CHAPTER VI

A couple of days after this, during which he had failed to profit by so free a permission, he had been for a quarter of an hour walking with his charge in silence when the boy became sociable again with the remark:  “I’ll tell you how I know it; I know it through Zenobie.”

“Zenobie?  Who in the world is she?”

“A nurse I used to have—­ever so many years ago.  A charming woman.  I liked her awfully, and she liked me.”

“There’s no accounting for tastes.  What is it you know through her?”