“Now do you pretend I’ve been dishonest, that I’ve deceived?” Mrs. Moreen flashed at Pemberton as she got up.

“It isn’t he says it, it’s I!” the boy returned, apparently easier, but sinking back against the wall; while his restored friend, who had sat down beside him, took his hand and bent over him.

“Darling child, one does what one can; there are so many things to consider,” urged Mrs. Moreen.  “It’s his place—­his only place.  You see you think it is now.”

“Take me away—­take me away,” Morgan went on, smiling to Pemberton with his white face.

“Where shall I take you, and how—­oh how, my boy?” the young man stammered, thinking of the rude way in which his friends in London held that, for his convenience, with no assurance of prompt return, he had thrown them over; of the just resentment with which they would already have called in a successor, and of the scant help to finding fresh employment that resided for him in the grossness of his having failed to pass his pupil.

“Oh we’ll settle that.  You used to talk about it,” said Morgan.  “If we can only go all the rest’s a detail.”

“Talk about it as much as you like, but don’t think you can attempt it.  Mr. Moreen would never consent—­it would be so very hand-to-mouth,” Pemberton’s hostess beautifully explained to him.  Then to Morgan she made it clearer:  “It would destroy our peace, it would break our hearts.  Now that he’s back it will be all the same again.  You’ll have your life, your work and your freedom, and we’ll all be happy as we used to be.  You’ll bloom and grow perfectly well, and we won’t have any more silly experiments, will we?  They’re too absurd.  It’s Mr. Pemberton’s place—­every one in his place.  You in yours, your papa in his, me in mine—­n’est-ce pas, cheri?  We’ll all forget how foolish we’ve been and have lovely times.”

She continued to talk and to surge vaguely about the little draped stuffy salon while Pemberton sat with the boy, whose colour gradually came back; and she mixed up her reasons, hinting that there were going to be changes, that the other children might scatter (who knew?—­Paula had her ideas) and that then it might be fancied how much the poor old parent-birds would want the little nestling.  Morgan looked at Pemberton, who wouldn’t let him move; and Pemberton knew exactly how he felt at hearing himself called a little nestling.  He admitted that he had had one or two bad days, but he protested afresh against the wrong of his mother’s having made them the ground of an appeal to poor Pemberton.  Poor Pemberton could laugh now, apart from the comicality of Mrs. Moreen’s mustering so much philosophy for her defence—­she seemed to shake it out of her agitated petticoats, which knocked over the light gilt chairs—­so little did their young companion, marked, unmistakeably marked at the best, strike him as qualified to repudiate any advantage.