“It’s something about Mr. Wrybolt,” Iris began, with a face of distress.  “You know he is my trustee—­I told you, didn’t I?  I see him very seldom, and we don’t take much interest in each other; he’s nothing but a man of business, the kind I detest; he can’t talk of anything but money and shares and wretched things of that sort.  But you know him you understand.”

The name of Wrybolt set before Dyce’s mind a middle-aged man, red-necked, heavy of eyelid, with a rather punctilious hearing and authoritative mode of speech.  They had met only once, here at Mrs. Woolstan’s house.

“I’m sure I don’t know why, but just lately he’s begun to make inquiries about Len, and to ask when I meant to send him to school.  Of course I told him that Len was doing very well indeed, and that I didn’t see the slightest necessity for making a change at all events just yet.  Well, yesterday he came, and said he wanted to see the boy.  Len was in bed—­he’s in bed still, though his cold’s much better and Mr. Wrybolt would go up to his room, and talk to him.  When he came down again, you know I’m going to tell you the whole truth, and of course you won’t mind it—­he began talking in a very nasty way—­he has a nasty way when he likes.  ’Look here, Mrs. Woolstan,’ he said, ’Leonard doesn’t seem to me to be doing well at all.  I asked him one or two questions in simple arithmetic, and he couldn’t answer.’  ‘Well,’ I said, ’for one thing Len isn’t well, and it isn’t the right time to examine a boy; and then arithmetic isn’t his subject; he hasn’t that kind of mind.’  But he wouldn’t listen, and the next thing he said was still nastier.  ‘Do you know,’ he said, ’that the boy is being taught atheism?’—­Well, what could I answer?  I got rather angry, and said that Len’s religious teaching was my own affair, and I couldn’t see what he had to do with it; and besides, that Len wasn’t being taught atheism, but that people who were not in the habit of thinking Philosophically couldn’t be expected to understand such things.  I think that was rather good, wasn’t it?  Didn’t I put it rather well?”

Iris panted in expectation of approval.  But merely a nod was vouchsafed to her.

“Go on,” said Dyce, drily.

“You’re not vexed, I hope?  I’m going to be quite frank, you know, just as you like people to be.  Well, Mr. Wrybolt went on, and would have it that Len was badly taught and altogether led in the wrong way, and that he’d grow up an immoral and an irreligious man.  ’You must remember, Mr. Wrybolt,’ I said, rather severely, ’that people’s ideas about morality and religion differ very much, and I can’t think you have sufficiently studied the subject to be capable of understanding my point of view’—­It was rather severe, wasn’t it?  But I think it was rather well put.”

“Go on,” said Dyce, with another nod.