mean. Oh they were "respectable," and that only made them more immondes.
The young man's analysis, while he brooded, put it at last very
simply--they were adventurers because they were toadies and snobs. That
was the completest account of them--it was the law of their being. Even
when this truth became vivid to their ingenious inmate he remained
unconscious of how much his mind had been prepared for it by the
extraordinary little boy who had now become such a complication in his
life. Much less could he then calculate on the information he was still
to owe the extraordinary little boy.




CHAPTER V


But it was during the ensuing time that the real problem came up--the
problem of how far it was excusable to discuss the turpitude of parents
with a child of twelve, of thirteen, of fourteen. Absolutely inexcusable
and quite impossible it of course at first appeared; and indeed the
question didn't press for some time after Pemberton had received his
three hundred francs. They produced a temporary lull, a relief from the
sharpest pressure. The young man frugally amended his wardrobe and even
had a few francs in his pocket. He thought the Moreens looked at him as
if he were almost too smart, as if they ought to take care not to spoil
him. If Mr. Moreen hadn't been such a man of the world he would perhaps
have spoken of the freedom of such neckties on the part of a subordinate.
But Mr. Moreen was always enough a man of the world to let things pass--he
had certainly shown that. It was singular how Pemberton guessed that
Morgan, though saying nothing about it, knew something had happened. But