Mrs. Pett, on leaving the luncheon-table, had returned to thedrawing-room to sit beside the sick-settee of her stricken child.

　　She was troubled about Ogden. The poor lamb was not at allhimself to-day. A bowl of clear soup, the midday meal prescribedby Doctor Briginshaw, lay untasted at his side.

　　She crossed the room softly, and placed a cool hand on her son'saching brow.

　　"Oh, Gee," said Ogden wearily.

　　"Are you feeling a little better, Oggie darling?""No," said Ogden firmly. "I'm feeling a lot worse.""You haven't drunk your nice soup.""Feed it to the cat.""Could you eat a nice bowl of bread-and-milk, precious?""Have a heart," replied the sufferer.

　　Mrs. Pett returned to her seat, sorrowfully. It struck her as anodd coincidence that the poor child was nearly always like thison the morning after she had been entertaining guests; she put itdown to the reaction from the excitement working on ahighly-strung temperament. To his present collapse the brutalbehaviour of Jerry Mitchell had, of course, contributed. Everydrop of her maternal blood boiled with rage and horror whenevershe permitted herself to contemplate the excesses of the lateJerry. She had always mistrusted the man. She had never liked hisface--not merely on aesthetic grounds but because she had seemedto detect in it a lurking savagery. How right events had provedthis instinctive feeling. Mrs. Pett was not vulgar enough todescribe the feeling, even to herself, as a hunch, but a hunch ithad been; and, like every one whose hunches have proved correct,she was conscious in the midst of her grief of a certaincomplacency. It seemed to her that hers must be an intelligenceand insight above the ordinary.

　　The peace of the early afternoon settled upon the drawing-room.

　　Mrs. Pett had taken up a book; Ogden, on the settee, breathedstentorously. Faint snores proceeded from the basket in thecorner where Aida, the Pomeranian, lay curled in refreshingsleep. Through the open window floated sounds of warmth andSummer.

　　Yielding to the drowsy calm, Mrs. Pett was just nodding into apleasant nap, when the door opened and Lord Wisbeach came in.

　　Lord Wisbeach had been doing some rapid thinking. Rapid thoughtis one of the essentials in the composition of men who are knownas Gentleman Jack to the boys and whose livelihood is won only bya series of arduous struggles against the forces of Society andthe machinations of Potter and his gang. Condensed into capsuleform, his lordship's meditations during the minutes after he hadleft Jimmy in the dining-room amounted to the realisation thatthe best mode of defence is attack. It is your man who knows howto play the bold game on occasion who wins. A duller schemer thanLord Wisbeach might have been content to be inactive after such aconversation as had just taken place between himself and Jimmy.