were announced.  Marshall tried bear-leading; but people are not particularly anxious to entrust their boys to a non-public school man afflicted by religious doubts.  He thought of making use of his really exquisite voice and becoming a public singer; but the training is fearfully expensive, and so somehow that plan also fell through.  For a time I am afraid he was really reduced to great straits, with the consequence that he broke down in health.  Through friends, my husband got to hear of Marshall’s miserable circumstances—­shortly after our marriage it was—­and felt it incumbent upon him to go to the rescue.”

Henrietta paused, thereby giving extra point to what was to follow, and pulled the fur rug up absently about her waist.

“For the last eighteen months,” she said, “Marshall has practically made his home with us.  The arrangement has its drawbacks, of course.  For one thing the General and I are never alone, and that is a trial to us both.  Two’s company and three’s none.  When a husband and wife are really devoted they don’t want always to have a third wheel to the domestic cart.”

Then, as if checking further and very natural inclination to repining, she looked round at Damaris, smiling from behind her thick white net veil with most disarming sweetness.

“No—­no—­I’m not naughty.  I don’t mean to complain about it,” she prettily protested.  “For I do so strongly feel if one sets out to do good it shouldn’t be by driblets, with your name, in full, printed in subscription lists against every small donation.  You should plump for your protege, and that with the least ostentation possible.  The General and I are careful not to let people know Marshall stays with us as a guest.  It is rather a slip speaking of it even to you; but I can trust you not to repeat what I say.  I am sure of that.”

Damaris laid a hand fondly, impulsively upon the elder woman’s knee.

“For certain you can trust me.  For certain anything you say to me is just between our two selves.  I should never dream of repeating it.”

“There speaks the precious downy owl of long ago,” Mrs. Frayling brightly cried, “bustling up in defence of its own loyalty and honour.  Ah!  Damaris, how very delicious it is to have you with me!”

For, her main point having been made, she now adroitly discarded pathos.  Another word regarding her philanthropic harbourage of the young man, Marshall Wace, remained to be spoken—­but not yet.  Let it come in later, naturally and without hint of insistence.

“We must be together as much as possible during the next few weeks,” she went on—­“as often as Sir Charles can be persuaded to spare you to me.  Whether the General and I shall ever make up our minds to settle down in a home of our own, where I could ask you to stay with us, I don’t know.  I’m afraid we are hopelessly nomadic.  Therefore I am extra anxious to make the most of the happy accident which has thrown us together, anxious