Mrs. Gisborne sniffed, and produced a pocket handkerchief from the early Victorian reticule.  She applied the handkerchief to her eyes in silence.  Merton observed her with pity.  ’We need the money so; there are so many of us,’ said the lady.

’Do you think that Mr. Fulton is—­passionately in love, with his domestic?’

‘He only loves his meals,’ said Mrs. Gisborne; ’he does not want to marry her, but she has a hold over him through—­his—­’

‘Passions, not of the heart,’ said Merton hastily.  He dreaded an anatomical reference.

’He is afraid of losing her.  He and his cronies give each other dinners, jealous of each other they are; and he actually pays the woman two hundred a year.’

‘And beer money?’ said Merton.  He had somewhere read or heard of beer money as an item in domestic finance.

’I don’t know about that.  The cruel thing is that she is a woman of strict temperance principles.  So am I. I am sure it is an awful thing to say, Mr. Graham, but Satan has sometimes put it into my heart to wish that the woman, like too, too many of her sort, was the victim of alcoholic temptations.  He has a fearful temper, and if once she was not fit for duty at one of his dinners, this awful gnawing anxiety would cease to ride my bosom.  He would pack her off.’

’Very natural.  She is free from the besetting sin of the artistic temperament?’

’If you mean drink, she is; and that is one reason why he values her.  His last cook, and his last but one—­’ Here Mrs. Gisborne narrated at some length the tragic histories of these artists.

‘Providential, I thought it, but now,’ she said despairingly.

‘She certainly seems a difficult woman to dislodge,’ said Merton.  ’A dangerous entanglement.  Any followers allowed?  Could anything be done through the softer emotions?  Would a guardsman, for instance—?’

’She hates the men.  Never one of them darkens her kitchen fire.  Offers she has had by the score, but they come by post, and she laughs and burns them.  Old Mr. Potter, one of his cronies, tried to get her away that way, but he is over seventy, and old at that, and she thought she had another chance to better herself.  And she’ll take it, Mr. Graham, if you can’t do something:  she’ll take it.’

’Will you permit me to say that you seem to know a good deal about her!  Perhaps you have some sort of means of intelligence in the enemy’s camp?’

‘The kitchen maid,’ said Mrs. Gisborne, purpling a little, ’is the sister of our servant, and tells her things.’

‘I see,’ said Merton.  ’Now can you remember any little weakness of this, I must frankly admit, admirable artist and exemplary woman?’

’You are not going to take her side, a scheming red-faced hussy, Mr. Graham?’

’I never betrayed a client, Madam, and if you mean that I am likely to help this person into your uncle’s arms, you greatly misconceive me, and the nature of my profession.’