"I didn't come in and disturb your work just to say all that, of
course," she said, "but really, Cecil, I understand things better than
you think. I know how fond you really are of Betty."

The Reverend Cecil doubted this; but he said nothing.

"And you know that I'm fond enough of the child myself. Now, all this
has upset you both tremendously. What do you propose to do?"

"I--I--nothing I thought. The less said about these deplorable affairs
the better. Lizzie will soon recover her natural tone, and forget all
about the matter."

"Then you mean to let everything go on in the old way?"

"Why, of course," said he uneasily.

"Well, it's your own affair, naturally," she spoke with a studied air
of detachment which worried him exactly as it was meant to do.

"What do you mean?" he asked anxiously. He had never been able wholly
to approve Miss Julia Desmond. She smoked cigarettes, and he could not
think that this would have been respectable in any other woman. Of
course, she was different from any other woman, but still--. Then the
Reverend Cecil could not deem it womanly to explore, unchaperoned, the
less well-known quarters of four continents, to penetrate even to
regions where skirts were considered improper and side-saddles were
unknown. Even the nearness of Miss Desmond's fiftieth birthday hardly
lessened at all the poignancy of his disapproval. Besides, she had not