This Valetta could not tell, and at the moment Mrs. Mount came up with intent to brush Miss Valetta’s hair, and to expedite the going to bed.

Gillian, not very happy about the revelations she had heard, went downstairs, and found her younger aunt alone, Miss Mohun having been summoned to a conference with one of her clients in the parish room.  In her absence Gillian always felt more free and communicative, and she had soon told whatever she did not feel as a sort of confidence, including Valetta’s derivation of spooning, and when Miss Mohun returned it was repeated to her.

‘Yes,’ was her comment, ’children’s play is a convenient cover to the present form of flirtation.  No doubt Bee Varley and Mr. Marlowe believe themselves to have been most good-natured.’

‘Who is he, and will it come to anything?’ asked Aunt Ada, taking her sister’s information for granted.

’Oh no, it is nothing.  A civil service man, second cousin’s brother-in-law’s stepson.  That’s quite enough in these days to justify fraternal romping.’

‘I thought Beatrice Varley a nice girl.’

’So she is, my dear.  It is only the spirit of the age, and, after all, this deponent saith not which was the dish and which was the spoon.  Have the children made any other acquaintances, I wonder?  And how did George Stebbing comport himself in the omnibus?  I was sorry to see him there; I don’t trust that boy.’

‘I wonder they didn’t send him in solitary grandeur in the brougham,’ said Miss Ada.

Gillian held the history of the pea-shooting as a confidence, even though Aunt Jane seemed to have been able to see through the omnibus, so she contented herself with asking who George Stebbing was.

‘The son of the manager of the marble works; partner, I believe.’

‘Yes,’ said Aunt Ada. ‘the Co. means Stebbing primarily.’

‘Is he a gentleman?’

’Well, as much as old Mr. White himself, I suppose.  He is come up here—–­more’s the pity—–­to the aristocratic quarter, if you please,’ said Aunt Jane, smiling, ’and if garden parties are not over, Mr. Stebbing may show you what they can be.’

‘That boy ought to be at a public school,’ said her sister.  ’I hope he doesn’t bully poor little Fergus.’

‘I don’t think he does,’ said Gillian.  ’Fergus seemed rather to admire him.’

‘I had rather hear of bullying than patronage in that quarter,’ said Miss Mohun.  ’But, Gillian, we must impress on the children that they are to go to no one’s house without express leave.  That will avoid offence, and I should prefer their enjoying the society of even the Varleys in this house.’

Did Aunt Jane repent of her decision on the Thursday half-holiday granted to Mrs. Edgar’s pupils, when, in the midst of the working party round the dining-room table, in a pause of the reading, some one said, ’What’s that!’—–­and a humming, accompanied by a drip, drop, drip, drop, became audible?