Millicent was silent.

’I’m ashamed of you, regularly ashamed ...  You with your hand on his shoulder in full sight of the works!  And on your mother’s birthday too!’

Leonora involuntarily stirred.  For more than twenty years it had been his custom to give her a kiss and a ten-pound note before breakfast on her birthday, but this year he had so far made no mention whatever of the anniversary.

‘I’m going to put my foot down,’ he continued with grieved majesty.  ’I don’t want to, but you force me to it.  I’ll have no goings-on with Fred Ryley.  Understand that.  And I’ll have no more idling about.  You girls—­at least you two—­are bone-idle.  Ethel shall begin to go to the works next Monday.  I want a clerk.  And you, Milly, must take up the housekeeping.  Mother, you’ll see to that.’

Leonora reflected that whereas Ethel showed a marked gift for housekeeping, Milly was instinctively averse to everything merely domestic.  But with her acquired fatalism she accepted the ukase.

‘You understand,’ said John to his pert youngest.

‘Yes, papa.’

‘No more carrying-on with Fred Ryley—­or any one else.’

‘No, papa.’

‘I’ve got quite enough to worry me without being bothered by you girls.’

Rose left the table, consciously innocent both of sloth and of light behaviour.

‘What are you going to do now, Rose?’ He could not let her off scot-free.

‘Read my chemistry, father.’

‘You’ll do no such thing.’

‘I must, if I’m to pass at Christmas,’ she said firmly.  ’It’s my weakest subject.’

‘Christmas or no Christmas,’ he replied, ’I’m not going to let you kill yourself.  Look at your face!  I wonder your mother——­’

‘Run into the garden for a while, my dear,’ said Leonora softly, and the girl moved to obey.

‘Rose,’ he called her back sharply as his exasperation became fidgetty.  ‘Don’t be in such a hurry.  Open the window—­an inch.’

* * * * *

Ethel and Millicent disappeared after the manner of young fox-terriers; they did not visibly depart; they were there, one looked away, they were gone.  In the bedroom which they shared, the door well locked, they threw oft all restraints, conventions, pretences, and discussed the world, and their own world, with terrible candour.  This sacred and untidy apartment, where many of the habits of childhood still lingered, was a retreat, a sanctuary from the law, and the fastness had been ingeniously secured against surprise by the peculiar position of the bedstead in front of the doorway.

‘Father is a donkey!’ said Ethel.

‘And ma never says a word!’ said Milly.

‘I could simply have smacked him when he brought in mother’s birthday,’ Ethel continued, savagely.

‘So could I.’

‘Fancy him thinking it’s you.  What a lark!’

‘Yes.  I don’t mind,’ said Milly.