“Well now, I’m quite sure you’ll understand me.  We do generally understand each other.  You see, I was put into a most difficult position.  Mr. Wrybolt is my trustee, and he has to look after Len—­ though he’s never given a thought to him till now—­and he’s a man of influence; that is to say, in his own wretched, vulgar world, but unfortunately it’s a kind of influence one’s obliged to think about.  Len, you know, is just eleven, and one has to begin to think about his future, and it isn’t as if he was going to be rich and could do as he liked.  I’m sure you’ll understand me.  With a man like Mr. Wrybolt—­”

“Not so many words,” interposed the listener, smiling rather disdainfully.  “I see the upshot of it all.  You promised to send Len to school.”

Mrs. Woolstan panted and fluttered and regarded Lashmar with eyes of agitated appeal.

“If you think I ought to have held out—­please say just what you think—­let us be quite frank and comradelike with each other—­I can write to Mr. Wrybolt.”—­

“Tell me plainly,” said Dyce, leaning towards her.  “What was your reason for giving way at once?  You really think, don’t you, that it will be better for the boy?”

“Oh, how could I think so, Mr. Lashmar!  You know what a high opinion—­”

“Exactly.  I am quite ready to believe all that.  But you will be easier in mind with Len at school, taught in the ordinary way?  Now be honest—­make an effort.”

“I—­perhaps—­one has to think of a boy’s future—­”

The pale face was suffused with rose, and for a moment looked pretty in its half-tearful embarrassment.

“Good.  That’s all right.  We’ll talk no more of it.”

There was a brief silence.  Dyce gazed slowly about him.  His eyes fell on nothing of particular value, nothing at all unusual in the drawing-room of a small house of middle-suburb type.  There were autotypes and etchings and photographs; there was good, comfortable furniture; the piano stood for more than mere ornament, as Mrs. Woolstan had some skill in music.  Iris’s widowhood was of five years’ duration.  At two and twenty she had married a government-office clerk, a man nearly twice her age, exasperated by routine and lack of advancement; on her part it was a marriage of generosity; she did not love the man, but was touched by his railing against fate, and fancied she might be able to aid his ambitions.  Woolstan talked of a possible secretaryship under the chief of his department; he imagined himself gifted for diplomacy, lacking only the chance to become a power in statecraft.  But when Iris had given herself and her six hundred a year, she soon remarked a decline in her husband’s aspiration.  Presently Woolstan began to complain of an ailment, the result of arduous labour and of disillusion, which might make it imperative for him to retire from the monotonous toil of the Civil Service; before long, he withdrew to a pleasant cottage in