Aldous’s eye travelled round the Mellor drawing-room.  It was arrested by a chair beside him.  On it lay an envelope addressed to Miss Boyce, of which the handwriting seemed to him familiar.  A needle with some black silk hanging from it had been thrust into the stuffed arm of the chair; the cushion at the back still bore the imprint of the sitter.  She had been there, not three minutes ago, and had fled before him.  The door into Mrs. Boyce’s sitting-room was still ajar.

He looked again at the envelope on the chair, and recognised the writing.  Walking across to where Mrs. Boyce sat, he took a seat beside her.

“Will you tell me,” he said steadily—­“I think you will admit I have a right to know—­is Marcella in constant correspondence now with Henry Wharton?”

Mrs. Boyce’s start was not perceptible.

“I believe so,” she quickly replied.  “So far as I can judge, he writes to her almost every other day.”

“Does she show you his letters?”

“Very often.  They are entirely concerned with his daily interviews and efforts on Hurd’s behalf.”

“Would you not say,” he asked, after another pause, raising his clear grey eyes to her, “that since his arrival here in December Marcella’s whole views and thoughts have been largely—­perhaps vitally—­influenced by this man?”

Mrs. Boyce had long expected questions of this kind—­had, indeed, often marvelled and cavilled that Aldous had not asked them weeks before.  Now that they were put to her she was, first of all, anxious to treat them with common sense, and as much plain truth as might be fair to both parties.  The perpetual emotion in which Marcella lived tired and oppressed the mother.  For herself she asked to see things in a dry light.  Yet she knew well that the moment was critical.  Her feeling was more mixed than it had been.  On the whole it was indignantly on Aldous’s side—­with qualifications and impatiences, however.

She took up her embroidery again before she answered him.  In her opinion the needle is to the woman what the cigarette is to the diplomatist.

“Yes, certainly,” she said at last.  “He has done a great deal to form her opinions.  He has made her both read and think on all those subjects she has so long been fond of talking about.”

She saw Aldous wince; but she had her reasons for being plain with him.

“Has there been nothing else than that in it?” said Aldous, in an odd voice.

Mrs. Boyce tried no evasions.  She looked at him straight, her slight, energetic head, with its pale gold hair lit up by the March sun behind her.

“I do not know,” she said calmly; “that is the real truth.  I think there is nothing else.  But let me tell you what more I think.”

Aldous laid his hand on hers for an instant.  In his pity and liking for her he had once or twice allowed himself this quasi-filial freedom.

“If you would,” he entreated.