“Phorcyas?”

“Yes.  How clever you are!  Who was Phorc-y-as?” Mrs. Nevill Tyson made a face over the word.

“It’s another name for Mephistopheles.” (Tyson knew his Goethe better than his classics.)

“And Mephistopheles is another name for—­the devil!  Oh!” She took the tips of his ears with the tips of her fingers and held his head straight while she stared into his eyes.  “Look me straight in the face now.  No blinking.  Are you the devil, I wonder?” She put her head on one side as if she were considering him judicially from an entirely new point of view.  “I wonder why papa didn’t like you?”

“He didn’t think me good enough for his little girl, and he was quite right there.”

“He didn’t mind so much when I got engaged to Willie Payne.  He said we were admirably suited to each other.  That was because Willie was a fool.  Oh—­I forgot you didn’t know!”

“Ah, I know now.  And how many more, Mrs. Molly?”

“No more—­only you.  And Willie doesn’t count.  It was ages ago, when I was at school.  Look here.”  She pushed back the ruffles of her sleeve and showed him a little livid mark running across the back of her hand.  “Did I ever tell you what that meant?  It means that they shoved Willie’s letters into the big fireplace—­with the tongs—­and that I stuck my hand between the bars and pulled them out.”

“I say—­you must have been rather gone on Willie, you know.”

“No.  I didn’t like him much.  But I loved his letters.”  Mrs. Nevill Tyson looked at the tips of her little shoes, and Mr. Nevill Tyson looked at her.

“So Willie doesn’t count, doesn’t he?”

“No.  He was a fool.  He never did anything.  Nevill, what did father think you’d done?”

“I really cannot say.  Nothing to deserve you, I suppose.”

“Rubbish!  I know all that.  But he said there was something, and he wouldn’t tell me what.  Anyhow, you didn’t do it, did you?”

“Probably not.”

“Come, I think you might tell me when I’ve confessed all my little sins to you.”  Mrs. Nevill Tyson was persistent, not because she in the least wanted to know, but because nobody likes being beaten.

“I don’t know what the dear old pater was driving at.  I don’t suppose he knew himself.  He was a scholar, not a man of the world.  He could read any Greek poet, I daresay, who was dead enough and dull enough; but when a real live Englishman walked into his study, it seemed to put him out somehow.  He didn’t like me, and he showed it.  All the same, I think I could have made him like me if he’d given me a chance.  I don’t suppose he does me any injustice now.”

“No.  He knew an awful lot about those stupid old Greeks and Romans and people, but I don’t think he knew much about you.  I expect he made it up to frighten mother.  That reminds me, what do you think Miss Batchelor says about you?  She told mother that it was a pity you hadn’t any profession—­every man ought to have a profession—­keep you out of mischief.  I wasn’t going to have her talking like that about my husband—­the impudent thing!—­so I just stopped her yesterday in Moxon’s shop and told her you had a profession.  I led up to it so neatly, you can’t think.  I said you were going to be a barrister or a judge or something.”