In this condition he reached the advanced age of thirteen.  And his parents, who despite their notion of themselves as wide-awake parents were a simple pair, never suspected that his heart, conceived to be still pure, had become a crawling, horrible mass of corruption.

One day the head-master called at the shop.  Now, to see a head-master walking about the town during school-hours is a startling spectacle, and is apt to give you the same uncanny sensation as when, alone in a room, you think you see something move which ought not to move.  Mr. Povey was startled.  Mr. Povey had a thumping within his breast as he rubbed his hands and drew the head-master to the private corner where his desk was.  “What can I do for you to-day?” he almost said to the head-master.  But he did not say it.  The boot was emphatically not on that leg.  The head-master talked to Mr. Povey, in tones carefully low, for about a quarter of an hour, and then he closed the interview.  Mr. Povey escorted him across the shop, and the head-master said with ordinary loudness:  “Of course it’s nothing.  But my experience is that it’s just as well to be on the safe side, and I thought I’d tell you.  Forewarned is forearmed.  I have other parents to see.”  They shook hands at the door.  Then Mr. Povey stepped out on to the pavement and, in front of the whole Square, detained an unwilling head-master for quite another minute.

His face was deeply flushed as he returned into the shop.  The assistants bent closer over their work.  He did not instantly rush into the parlour and communicate with Constance.  He had dropped into a way of conducting many operations by his own unaided brain.  His confidence in his skill had increased with years.  Further, at the back of his mind, there had established itself a vision of Mr. Povey as the seat of government and of Constance and Cyril as a sort of permanent opposition.  He would not have admitted that he saw such a vision, for he was utterly loyal to his wife; but it was there.  This unconfessed vision was one of several causes which had contributed to intensify his inherent tendency towards Machiavellianism and secretiveness.  He said nothing to Constance, nothing to Cyril; but, happening to encounter Amy in the showroom, he was inspired to interrogate her sharply.  The result was that they descended to the cellar together, Amy weeping.  Amy was commanded to hold her tongue.  And as she went in mortal fear of Mr. Povey she did hold her tongue.

Nothing occurred for several days.  And then one morning—­it was Constance’s birthday:  children are nearly always horribly unlucky in their choice of days for sin—­Mr. Povey, having executed mysterious movements in the shop after Cyril’s departure to school, jammed his hat on his head and ran forth in pursuit of Cyril, whom he intercepted with two other boys, at the corner of Oldcastle Street and Acre Passage.

Cyril stood as if turned into salt.  “Come back home!” said Mr. Povey, grimly; and for the sake of the other boys:  “Please.”