“Now I come to think of it,” resumed Mrs. Riversedge, “there are things about Mr. Brope that I’ve never been able to account for. His income, for instance: he only gets two hundred a year as editor of the Cathedral Monthly , and I know that his people are quite poor, and he hasn’t any private means. Yet he manages to afford a flat somewhere in Westminster, and he goes abroad to Bruges and those sorts of places every year, and always dresses well, and gives quite nice luncheon-parties in the season. You can’t do all that on two hundred a year, can you?”

“Does he write for any other papers?” queried Mrs. Troyle.