"Mama and I don't tell Mr. Gibbon any secrets," Deleah said.

"I dare say Mr. Gibbon does not want to hear them. As for me I find, when
you live in the same house with a man, it's impossible to keep him at
arm's length."

"Who wants to keep him at arm's length? I only mentioned I did not feel
called upon to tell him any secrets."

"And I only said he wouldn't care to hear your secrets--if you have any."

"I haven't," Deleah admitted, laughing.

"I have, then. And I shall tell them to who I like, spite of Deda's
pertness, mama."

"Say to 'whom you like,' Bessie."

"Mama, will you speak to Deleah? She is being impertinent to me again."

How impossible it would have been to entertain Reggie Forcus and Mr.
Gibbon at the same board, Bessie often felt. But the days when Reggie had
dropped in to meals with the prosperous Days in Queen Anne Street were
over for ever. Half a loaf was better than no bread. To know that a male
creature, who could not be indifferent to her, was an inmate of the house
was as she often said to herself--something.

She took no interest in him, of course. A young man out of a draper's
shop! But it was more amusing to subjugate even such an one as he than to
have no one at her feet.