“Oh, I say, Tappan, let Miss Seagrave have what she wants!” he exclaimed with a hearty disregard of caution, which outwardly disturbed but inwardly deceived nobody except Geraldine and Mrs. Severn.

Colonel Mallett thought:  “The acquisitive beast is striking attitudes on his fool of a son’s account.”

Mr. Tappan’s small iron-gray eyes bored two holes through the inward motives of Mr. Grandcourt, and his mouth tightened till the seamed lips were merely a line.

“I think, Magnelius,” said Colonel Mallett coldly, “that it is, perhaps, the sense of our committee that the time has practically arrived for some change—­perhaps radical change—­in the—­in the—­ah—­the hitherto exceedingly wise regulations——­”

“May I have real lace?” cried Geraldine—­“Oh, I beg your pardon, Colonel Mallett, for interrupting, but I was perfectly crazy to know what you were going to say.”

Other people have been crazier and endured more to learn what hope the verdict of ponderous authority might hold for them.

Colonel Mallett, a trifle ruffled at the interruption, swallowed several times and then continued without haste to rid himself of a weighty opinion concerning the debut and the petticoats of the Half Moon’s ward.  He might have made the child happy in one word.  It took him twenty minutes.

Concurring opinions were then solemnly delivered by every director in turn except Mr. Tappan, who spoke for half an hour, doggedly dissenting on every point.

But the days of the old regime were evidently numbered.  He understood it.  He looked across at the crackled portrait of his old friend Anthony Seagrave; the faded, painted features were obliterated in a bar of slanting sunlight.

So, concluding his dissenting opinion, and having done his duty, he sat down, drawing the skirts of his frock-coat close around his bony thighs.  He had done his best; his reward was this child’s hatred—­which she already forgot in the confused delight of her sudden liberation.

Dazed with happiness, to one after another Geraldine courtesied and extended the narrow childlike hand of amity—­even to him.  Then, as though treading on invisible pink clouds, she floated out and away up-stairs, scarcely conscious of passing her brother on the stairway, who was now descending for his turn before the altar of authority.

* * * * *

When Scott returned he appeared to be unusually red in the face.  Geraldine seized him ecstatically: 

“Oh, Scott!  I am to come out, after all—­and I’m to have my quarterly, and gowns, and everything.  I could have hugged Mr. Grandcourt—­the dear!  I was so frightened—­frightened into rudeness—­and then that beast of a Tappan scared me terribly.  But it is all right now—­and what did they promise you, poor dear?”

Scott’s face still remained flushed as he stood, hands in his pockets, head slightly bent, tracing with the toe of his shoe the carpet pattern.