Jim, staring at a picture of some sky, some beach, and a face of rock, would murmur a somewhat bewildered appreciation, looking out of the corner of his eye, at the same time, at the attractive gondolier singing to his pretty lady passengers, on the right, or the nice young peasant nursing her baby in a sunny window while her mother peeled apples, on the left.

“Of course, it’s the only thing here, this year, absolutely the only one,” Mrs. Chancellor would conclude.  “The rest is just one huge joke.  I know Artie Holloway—­Sir Arthur, he is—­quite well, and I told him so!  He’s a director.”

“But I don’t see how you know so much about it!” Jim would say admiringly.

“One must know about such things, my dear boy,” she always answered serenely.  “One isn’t an oyster, after all!”

It was this dashing lady and not Barbara who first brought Jim’s mind to a sense of his own injustice to Julia, or rather to a realization that the situation, as it stood, was fair to neither Julia nor himself.  Not that he ever mentioned Julia to Ivy; but she knew, of course, of Julia’s existence, and being a shrewd and experienced woman she drew her own conclusions.  One day she expressed herself very frankly on the subject.

“You’ve taken the rooms above Sir Peveril’s, eh?” she asked him.

“Well, yes,” Jim answered, after a second’s pause.  “They’re bully rooms!”

“Oh, rather—­they’re quite the nicest in town,” she stated.  “But, I say, my dear boy, wasn’t the rent rather steep?”

“Not terrible.”  He mentioned it.  “And I’ve taken ’em for five years,” he added.

“For—­eh?” She brought her sandy lashes together and studied him through them.  “You’re rarely going to stay then, you nice child?”

“Yes, Grandmother dear.  Sir Peveril wants me.  I’ve taken his hospital work; people are really extraordinarily kind to me!” Jim summarized.

“Oh, you’ve been vetted, there’s no question of that,” she agreed thoughtfully.  They were at tea in her own drawing-room, which was crowded with articles handsome and hideous, Victorian lace tidies holding their own with really fine old furniture, and exquisite bits of oil or water colour sharing the walls with old steel engravings in cumbersome frames.  Now Ivy leaned back in her chair, and stirred her tea, not speaking for a few minutes.

“There’s just one thing,” she said presently.  “Before you come here to stay, put your house in order.  Don’t leave everything at haome in a narsty mess that’ll have to be straightened aout later, if you know what I mean?  Get that all straight, and have it understood, d’ye see?”

The colour came into Jim’s face at so unexpected an attack, yet speech was a relief, too.

“I don’t know whether I can straighten it out,” he confessed, with a nervous laugh.

“It’s not a divorce, eh?”

“No—­not exactly.”

“The gell’s gone home to her people?”