“About the baby?” asked Mrs. Herriton pleasantly.

“Yes.”

“As far as I know, no steps.  Mrs. Theobald may have decided on something, but I have not heard of it.”

“I was meaning, had you decided on anything?”

“The child is no relation of ours,” said Philip.  “It is therefore scarcely for us to interfere.”

His mother glanced at him nervously.  “Poor Lilia was almost a daughter to me once.  I know what Miss Abbott means.  But now things have altered.  Any initiative would naturally come from Mrs. Theobald.”

“But does not Mrs. Theobald always take any initiative from you?” asked Miss Abbott.

Mrs. Herriton could not help colouring.  “I sometimes have given her advice in the past.  I should not presume to do so now.”

“Then is nothing to be done for the child at all?”

“It is extraordinarily good of you to take this unexpected interest,” said Philip.

“The child came into the world through my negligence,” replied Miss Abbott.  “It is natural I should take an interest in it.”

“My dear Caroline,” said Mrs. Herriton, “you must not brood over the thing.  Let bygones be bygones.  The child should worry you even less than it worries us.  We never even mention it.  It belongs to another world.”

Miss Abbott got up without replying and turned to go.  Her extreme gravity made Mrs. Herriton uneasy.  “Of course,” she added, “if Mrs. Theobald decides on any plan that seems at all practicable—­I must say I don’t see any such—­I shall ask if I may join her in it, for Irma’s sake, and share in any possible expenses.”

“Please would you let me know if she decides on anything.  I should like to join as well.”

“My dear, how you throw about your money!  We would never allow it.”

“And if she decides on nothing, please also let me know.  Let me know in any case.”

Mrs. Herriton made a point of kissing her.

“Is the young person mad?” burst out Philip as soon as she had departed.  “Never in my life have I seen such colossal impertinence.  She ought to be well smacked, and sent back to Sunday-school.”

His mother said nothing.

“But don’t you see—­she is practically threatening us?  You can’t put her off with Mrs. Theobald; she knows as well as we do that she is a nonentity.  If we don’t do anything she’s going to raise a scandal—­that we neglect our relatives, &c., which is, of course, a lie.  Still she’ll say it.  Oh, dear, sweet, sober Caroline Abbott has a screw loose!  We knew it at Monteriano.  I had my suspicions last year one day in the train; and here it is again.  The young person is mad.”

She still said nothing.

“Shall I go round at once and give it her well?  I’d really enjoy it.”

In a low, serious voice—­such a voice as she had not used to him for months—­Mrs. Herriton said, “Caroline has been extremely impertinent.  Yet there may be something in what she says after all.  Ought the child to grow up in that place—­and with that father?”