“Yes, of course; and, worse still, I shall lose his letters.  We live so quietly here that his letters have come to me like news of another world.  How many different worlds are there all round one in London?  It has been pleasant to read of that one in which ladies go about beautifully dressed always, and where the people have nothing to do but to amuse themselves.  He has told me about this world in which he lives, and about his own life, so that I know everything he does, and where he goes; and”—­here she sighed heavily—­“of course it could not go on forever; and I should not mind so much if it had not been carried on under false pretenses.”

“No false pretenses at all, my dear.  Don’t think it.”

“I sent back his last check,” she said, trying to find a little consolation for herself.  “But yet—­”

“Well, Iris,” said her grandfather, “he wanted to learn heraldry, and you have taught him.”

“For the last three months”—­the girl blushed as if she was confessing her sins—­“for the last three months there has not been a single word in his letters about heraldry.  He tells me that he writes because he is idle, or because he wants to talk, or because he is alone in his studio, or because he wants his unknown friend’s advice.  I am his unknown friend, and I have been giving him advice.”

“And very good advice, too,” said her grandfather benevolently.  “Who is so wise as my Iris?”

“I have answered all his letters, and never once told him that I am only a girl.”

“I am glad you did not tell him, Iris,” said her grandfather; but he did not say why he was glad.  “And why can’t he go on writing his letters without making any fuss?”

“Because he says he must make the acquaintance of the man—­the man, he says—­with whom he has been in correspondence so long.  This is what he says.”

She opened a letter which lay upon a table covered with papers, but her grandfather stopped her.

“Well, my dear, I do not want to know what he says.  He wishes to make your acquaintance.  Very good, then.  You are going to see him, and to tell him who you are.  That is enough.  But as for deceiving”—­he paused, trying to understand this extreme scrupulosity of conscience—­“if you come to deceiving—­well, in a kind sort of a way you did allow him to think his correspondent a man.  I admit that.  What harm is done to him?  None.  He won’t be so mean, I suppose, as to ask for his money back again.”

“I think he ought to have it all back,” said Iris; “yes, all from the very beginning.  I am ashamed that I ever took any money from him.  My face burns when I think of it.”

To this her grandfather made no reply.  The returning of money paid for services rendered was, to his commercial mind, too foolish a thing to be even talked about.  At the same time, Iris was quite free to manage her own affairs.  And then there was that roll of papers in the safe.  Why, what matter if she sent away all her pupils?  He changed the subject.