‘Yes, sir, it’s better—­though I don’t always think so.’

‘These two keep well?’

‘Fairly well.’

‘There’s never nothing the matter with me!’ exclaimed young Jack, bluff though shamefaced.

‘Nothing except your grammar, you mean, Jack,’ replied his father.  ’Will you just sit down, sir?  I was afraid at first there was something wrong, when you mentioned Mrs. Ormonde.’

Egremont reassured him, and went on to say that Mrs. Ormonde was anxious to see him personally whilst she was in town.  He felt it would be better not to explain the nature of the proposal Mrs. Ormonde was going to make, and affected to know nothing more than that she wished to speak of the child’s health.  Bunce had knitted his brows; his heavy lips took on a fretful sullenness.  He knew that it was impossible to meet Egremont with flat refusals, and the prospect of being driven into something he intensely disliked worked him into an inward fume.  He gave a great scrape on the floor with one of his heels as if he would have ploughed a track in the boards.

‘I’m sorry,’ he began, ’I’ve got no free time worth speaking of.  I’m much obliged to the lady.  But I don’t see how I’m to—­’

He wanted to blunder out words of angry impatience; his rising choler brought him to a full stop in the middle of the sentence.

Egremont addressed himself in earnest to the task persuasion.  More was involved than mere benefit to the child’s health; it was easy to see that Bunce’s position was a miserable one, and Mrs. Ormonde, if once she could establish direct relations with the man, would doubtless find many a little way of being useful to him.  He put it at length as a personal favour.  Bunce again ploughed the floor, then blurted out: 

’I’ll go, Mr. Egremont.  I’m not one to talk to ladies, as you can see yourself, but I can’t help that.  I shall have to go as I am.’

‘Mrs. Ormonde will gladly come here, if you will let her.’

‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind, sir.’

’Then it will be simplest if you go to my rooms in Great Russell Street, just by the British Museum.  I leave town tomorrow; Mrs. Ormonde will be quite alone to meet you.  Could you be there at nine o’clock?’

The appointment was made, Egremont leaving one of his cards to insure recollection of the address.  Then he spoke a word or two to the children, and Bunce led him down to the door.  They shook hands.

‘I shall see you at the library soon, I hope,’ Egremont said.  ’You must give me your best help in making it known.’

The words sounded so hollow in his own ears that, as he turned to go along the dark street, he could have laughed at himself scornfully.

As Bunce reascended, someone met and passed him, hurrying with light feet and woman’s garments silently.

‘That you, Miss Nancarrow?’ he asked, for there was no light on the staircase.